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ITS AUTHORSHIP AND AUTHENTICITY. 



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THE BIBLE: WHAT IT IS. 

BOOK I. 

GENESIS: 

ITS AUTHORSHIP & AUTHENTICITY. 




CHARLES BRADLAUGH, 



LONDON: 

AtiSTiN & Co., 17, Johnson's eouET, Fleet Street. 

1870. 



Tmih gains more even by the errors of one who, with du© 
study and preparation, thinks for himself, than by the true 
opinions of those who only hold them because tbey do not 
suffer themselves to think."— J, S. Mill, 



To the honoured memory of those whom the world warred 
against and struck down, but who warred for the very world 
which crushed them ; to the revered memory of those who, 
with the blood-drops from their wounded feet, softened the 
rugged path along which all must travel ; to the memory 
of the martyrs for Freethought in every age and clime, I 
dedicate this volume. I could wish that their worthiness, 
redeeming its faults, might give it force for good in freeing 
human thought from bondage. 



INTRODUCTION. 



is to be regretted that in the second half of the nine- 
teenth century, and ia a country professing to occupy an 
advanced position amongst enlightened peoples, there should 
be any necessity for the publication of a commentary 
on Genesis, written for the purpose of demonstrating 
that the book is not a perfect and infallible revelation 
specially given from an all -wise and infinite Deity, Creator, 
and Euler of all worlds, to his creatures on this planet 
alone, and that it is not an unerring guide and monitor 
to humankind in their constant life- struggle for happi- 
ness. There is no great honour or pleasure, although there 
ifi much wearisome toil, in gathering the materials for prov- 
ing that Genesis nearly always blunders in its attempts at 
statements of fact, that it is repeatedly chronologically 
incorrect, and in the chronologies of its principal versions 
utterly irreconcileable ; that copyists, through ignorance, 
carelessness, or design, have in many places incorrectly 
transcribed the text ; that the translators, according to their 
respective creeds, vary in their interpretations of different 
momentous passages ; that the Hebrew language itself has 
been altered by the addition of vowel points, by means of 
which a sense is often given entirely different from the origi- 
nal intention ; and that the majority of the ancient versions 
contain different and contradictory readings of various 
important verses. But it is absolutely necessary to do all 
this in a form accessible to the general reader so long as the 
Church persists, under statutory sanction and indorsement 
in its teaching to the people from their early childhood, that 
this Bible is God's word free from blemish. Genesis is 
forced upon the child's brain as God's word by nurse and 
pedagogue, and the mode of thinking of the scholar is in 
consequence utterly warped in favour of the divinity of the 
book before his reason has opportunity to mature for its 
examination. If the book only had claimed for it that 
which may be claimed for all books— namely, in part or 
whole to represent the genius, education, and manners of 
the people and times, from whom and which it issued, then 
it might fairly be objected by supporters of the Bible that 
the tone of criticism here adopted is not of the highest 



ESTTRODTJCTIOB'. 



order, and that the petty cavillings about misplaced names, 
misspelled words, incorrect dates and numbers, and geogra- 
phical errors, &c., are hardlj worthy the attention of a 
serious student. But as the Bible is declared to be the 
revelation and representative of perfect intelligence to the 
whole human family ; as it is placed by the whole of its 
preachers immeasurably above all other books, with a claim 
to dominate, and if necessary to overturn the teachings of 
all other books ; as it is alleged that the Bible is free from 
the errors of thought and fact more or less found in every 
other book ; and as it is by act of parliament declared to be a 
criminal olFence in this country for any person to deny this 
book to be God's holy word, it is not only a right, but be- 
comes an unavoidable duty on the part of a freethinking 
critic to present as plainly as possible to the notice of the 
people every weakness of the text, however trivial, that may 
serve to show that the Bible, or any portion of it, is fallible, 
that it is imperfect, that so far from being above all other 
books, it is often below them as a mere literary production. 

Holding this opinion, I issue the following commentary, in 
the hope that its perusal will induce thought in some who 
have hitherto been contented to drift down the stream c»f 
life, and who have been carried along the customary channel 
as though they were without energy enough to find or make 
new thought-paths for themselves or others. That my work 
is incomplete I am well aware, and I shall gladly see it sup- 
plemented from abler hands. I invite criticism, trusting 
that in the discussion of each point the debaters and on- 
lookers may be brought to a more liberal mode of treating 
each other, and to a more correct appreciation of the subjects 
examined. To the orthodox opponent, who will probably 
condemn before reading, and who may probably wish to 
remind me that I am but the weak imitator of greater infi- 
dels, who have in former ages attacked the Bible and have 
failed in their attacks, I reply, that I do not pretend to 
originality, but that so far from the greater infidels, whose 
muster-roll of names includes such as Spinoza, Voltaire, and 
Paine, having failed in their attacks upon the Bible, they 
have at any rate so far succeeded that Biblical investigation 
is nowpossiblewithoutfear of seriouspenal consequences, when 
before their struggling a fiery death ended nearly every strife 
against the Church. They have so far succeeded that 
science, by their efforts set free from church fetters and re- 
strictions, has discovered, since their success, many new 



ES'TEODTTCTIOK. 



facts with which to demolish more easily the old creeds. 
The objections of to-day are not in whole, or even in great 
part, those of Voltaire and Paine. Geology and chronology 
have furnished weapons against the Bible which the old 
Treethinkers never dreamed of being able to use. But not 
only has Freethought new weapons, we have also had achieved 
for us a great success in that many of the former defences of 
superstition no longer avail even in the opinion of the most 
tigotedly orthodox. Excommunication is no longer ac- 
counted an unanswerable and logical refutation of any argu- 
ment presented from heretical mouth or pen. To burn a 
volume in the open market-place by the hands of the com- 
mon hangman cannot now be accepted as a successful answer 
to an infidel treatise. The king's attorney-general, and the 
borough or county gaol, have no longer their orthodox elo- 
quence with which to persuade the unbeliever. From 
Vanini to Carlile, from faggot to dungeon, the attacks of 
infidelity on superstition have become more and more suc- 
cessful. The Church can no longer put heretics to death, 
although the stain of legal persecution still adheres to her 
robe. Penalties for opinion still exist by law, but even in 
her own Ecclesiastical Courts the Church finds it difficult to 
override the stubborn judgment of outside public opinion. 
Now it is only an almost obsolete statute which forbids dis- 
belief, and in the next generation that barrier even will he 
swept from the path of free discussion. 

The reader will find frequent references made to Bellamy's 
New Translation of Genesis. Bellamy was a painstaking, 
honest man, and good Hebraist, but his desire to free the text 
of the Bible from the imputation of containing objectionable 
passages often leads him to strain for an interpretation not 
warranted by the Hebrew. Kalisch's Commentary — a far 
superior and much less partial book, is also in constant use in 
these pages. His volume contains one of the most admirable 
collections of criticisms on Genesis ever presented to the 
English reader. It utters far more heresy than Colenso has 
yet ventured to put forward against Genesis. The author 
does not profess to reject the Bible as a divinely inspired 
book, but as he admits that it is irreconcilably contradicted . 
by science, and confesses that in more than one place its 
own self-opposing statements cannot be explained away, it 
is evident that Kalisch's views on inspiration are not of a 
very orthodox order. Colenso's volumes, repeatedly quoted 
here, are valuable as coming from a Church of England 



viii 



INTRODUCTIOJi", 



bishop, but the various criticisms on Genesis are scattered 
through the four parts, and do not, except in one part, fol- 
low in any order of chapter and verse, nor does the Bishop 
appear to be much acquainted with the English school of 
writers against the Bible, Questiones Mosaicae, bj Osmond 
de Beauvoir Priaulx, containing a comparison of the ideas 
traced in the first twenty-five chapters of Genesis with the 
Hindoo, Chinese, Grecian, and Egyptian myths, is specially 
useful as a guide to the general reader wishing to trace out 
coincidences of myth ; it is written by a very plain-speaking 
man, who disclaims connection with either the orthodox or 
heterodox commentators, but who does not hesitate to occa- 
sionally judge very severely the morality of the narratives 
he examines. A very earnest and straightforward analysis 
of the Pentateuch, specially intended for the working classes, 
has recently been issued by a writer adopting the name of 
Presbyter Anglicanus. It is well deserving the attention 
of the Ereethinking student. The writer has evidently 
been at considerable pains to place a reliable handbook in 
the reach of those whom he addresses. I am indebted to 
one of the noble band driven into exile by France's imperial 
degradation, for the use of Cahen's admirable French trans- 
lation of the Bible, a work which ought to be in the library 
of every critical reader. In all references to the Hebrew I 
refer to it without points, believing the latter to have been 
added at a comparatively modern period, and to have often 
entirely varied the meaning of the word to which they were 
added. The present commentary might have occupied much 
greater space, its details being susceptible of considerable 
amplification ; but my plan of criticism has necessarily been 
subordinate to the exigencies of business life — a few hours 
occasionally morning or evening being all I have been able 
to devote to study or writing, and this will account for many 
points in Genesis which, though open to similar objections 
to those here raised, have yet been passed without notice. 
So far as I have gone I believe my examination to have been 
thorough, and the refutation of Biblical infallibility to be 
complete ; should any orthodox opponent think otherwise, 
I shall be ready to supplement the list of objections if any 
considerable portion of the discrepancies and flaws here no- 
ticed are got rid of by any plausible argument. 

C. Beadlaugh. 

Sunderland Villa. North uir^berl and Park, 
Tottenham. 



GENESIS: 



IT3 A UTHOESHIP AND AUTHENTICITY. 



The book of G-enosis, as the first book of the Pentateuch, 
is at the present time the subject of sharp discussion, the 
general public finding a special interest in the controversy 
in consequence of the comments of the public press on the 
recent publications by Dr. Colenso on the one side, and 
those of Dr. Gumming, Dr. Alexander McCaul, &c., on the 
other; and although it is probably almost impossible to 
present any new features to tl^e reader on the general ques- 
tion of the genuineness and authenticity of Genesis, in 
addition to the criticisms of the last few centuries, yet I 
hope to include in the following comments, and in order of 
chapter and verse, the principal points which have been de- 
bated by the objectors to, and defenders of, this first book of 
the Bible, and trust in this to be useful in guiding the 
working class reader to information not generally accessible 
to him. The name ^' Genesis " is a Greek prefix put into 
English letters, and means creation, formation, produc- 
tion, origin, or growth. In tlie Hebrew the book has no 
title whatever beyond its first word (BeEAShlTH )'-^ 
n^'tt'b^'lll? in the herjimiing, which is written in chai actt rs 
rather larger than those which follow. The words, the 
first book of Moses," found in the authorised version, aTO 
without any authority wiiatever in the Hebrew text, and 
are unfounded in fact. Spinoza, a Jew of great learning, 



* Throughout this commpritary capital letters will answer for the 
actual Hebrew letitrs, while the smaU ictterd respond to the interca- 
lated vowels. 



2 



GENESJSS 



who wrote in Holland about the middle of the 17th century, 
considered it *^as clear as the noon-day light" that Moses 
was not the author of any part of the Pentateuch ; and 
urges that nothing is known as to when, where, or by whom 
the book of Genesis was penned, or by whom it was pre- 
served.* He declares that many blemishes have crept into 
the Hebrew text itself, and that even the most ancient 
Jewish writers have animadverted on various doubtful read- 
ings and on several imperfect and truncated passages. He 
also urges that our Hebrew canon rests upon the decision 
of the Pharisees of the second Temple, who, on grounds to 
us unknown, selected the books we have from amongst a great 
number, and that their decision was far from unanimous : 
one book (Ezekiel) becoming the word of Grod, through the 
Bupport given to it by Neghunja, the son of Hiskias ; and 
another (Ecclesiastes) narrowly escaping suppression, be- 
cause objected to by certain learned persons referred to in 
the Talmud, by Eabbi Jehuda, surnamed Eabi. (Tractatus 
Sabbathi, cap. 2, fol. 80, p. 2.) These persons, he says, 
also desired to suppress the book of Proverbs. 

It is surprising, in the face of the researches of the most 
erudite Biblicists, that men, such as Dr. Baylee, the head of 
St. Aidan's College, at Birkenhead, and Dr. Miller, of Bir- 
mingham, should maintain that the original Hebrew text of 
God's revelation to mankind has been preserved by the 
Jewish Eabbis uncorrupted and without the loss or varia- 
tion of a single letter or word. And why do they speak of 
the original Hebrew in which Moses wrote ? It can hardly 
be pretended that the Deity selected the Hebrew for its 
flexibility and capacity for expressing his meaning. On the 
contrary, the Greek far excels the Hebrew as a written 
tongue. Nor is the Hebrew the most ancient written lan- 
guage. The construction of the various Hebrew Eoots 
affords reason to the contrary, and it is absolutely certain 
that the whole of the vowel points (which in many cases 
entirely change the meaning of the text) are of compara- 
tively modern date, say from the second to the fifth century 
of the present era — probably not earlier than a.d. 450. The 



Tractatus Theologico-Politicus, caps. 7, 8, and 9. 



TT9 -AUTHORSHIP AND AUTHENTICITY. 



3 



present square letter form of Hebrew, and the twenty-two 
letter alphabet, are also of limited antiquity. The Hebrew 
Scriptures are neither the most ancient nor the most perfect 
of Scriptures. That the Hebrew text of Genesis has been 
corrupted there can be but little doubt, and that the 
authorised translation is imperfect is still more certain. 
Luke Burke, the able Editor of the Future^ referring to the 
comparative merits of the Samaritan, Hebrew, and Septua*^ 
gint versions, says — ^' The Jew naturally prefers the reading 
which exists in his own version, the Samaritan contends 
for the superiority of his copy, and the generality of Chris- 
tians prefer of course the Septuagint. Each party accuses 
the other of wilful corruption of the text, and some at least 
of these accusations must be true."* Dr. Wall, Vice-Provost 
of Trinity College, Dublin, speaks of the " blemishes in the 
existing condition of the Hebrew text," some of which he 
attributes to fraud, and others to gross ignorance ;t and it 
is declared by competent critics that the Hebrew text, even 
after the Masoretic correction and purification, was defi- 
cient, imperfect, interpolated, and full of errors.''! Before 
the Christian era there were no divisions between words of 
the Hebrew text, and the five final letters were not invented ; 
and from then till a.d, 1000 the texts of the various codices 
were in a most corrupt and unreliable state, and even of 
these we have not a single M.S. extant in the present day. 
The English translation (authorised version) is wretchedly 
imperfect. Errors abound in it, and some of them of a 
most laughable description. On this account great calls 
have been made for a new translation, and also for a new 
edition of the Hebrew ; but neither a new translation nor 
a new Hebrew text will remove the bulk of the difficulties. 
Science has rendered the objections to the narrative insur- 
mountable, and a pseudo-revelation must succumb to fa43t« 
supported reason. 

Eemembering how often I have been twitted, and prob- 
ably with justice, on my want of knowledge of the Hebrew 



* Ethnological Journal, p. 19. 

t Grounds for Revision of the Hebrew Bible, pp. 102 and 545. 
X Types of Mankind, pp. 621 and 62? 



4 



GENESIS : 



tongue, by those who profess to have had a better education 
than myself, and seeing that in the answers to Bishop 
Colenso, his opponents denounce him as ignorant of Hebrew 
(as was also the case half a century since, when the pigmy 
D'Oyley, set up his pretensions as an orthodox philolo- 
gist against the giant erudition of the heretical Sir William 
Drummond), I have some pleasure in laying before my 
readers the following selection from a great Hebrew 
writer :* — The first great * difficulty,' " he says, con- 
nected with our method arises from the consummate know- 
ledge of the Hebrew tongue which its due application 
implies. But whence is this now to be obtained? The 
ancient masters of the Hebrew tongue have left nothing to 
posterity on the elements and principles of the language ; 
we, at all events, have little or nothing of theirs — ^no dic- 
tionary, no grammar, no syntax. The Hebrew nation has lost 
all that it ever had of the elegancies and ornaments of life (nor 
is this wonderful after such long ages of depression, disaster, 
and persecution), and has preserved nothing but a few frag- 
ments of its language and its literature. Then the meaning of 
many nouns and verbs which are met with in the Bible, is 
either wholly unknown or is a subject of dispute. With all 
this when we apply ourselves to study the syntax of this 
language, a matter of so much moment, and seek to discover 
the idioms and modes of expression peculiar to the Hebrew 
people, we find that time, the consumer, has blotted them 
almost all from the memory of man. We shall, therefore, 
not be able, as we would wish, to determine the precise 
meaning of every passage which the common uses of the 
language would permit, and we shall come upon many sen- 
tences which, although expressed in words extremely well 
known, are nevertheless of meaning most obscure, and are 
sometimes incomprehensible. To these difficulties must be 
added those which arise from the constitution and nature of 
the language itself, which occasion so many ambiguities that 
it is impossible to find such a method as shall assuredly 
teach us how to investigate the true sense of all the ex- 



♦ Spinoza: Tractatus Theologico-Politicus, p. 154, Latin Edition, 
cap. 7j sec. 44. 



ITS AUTHORSHIP AND AUTHENTICITY, 5 

pressions of scripture.'^ After pointing out that doubt and 
obscurity result from the use of one letter in lieu of another, 
from the various meanings attaching to conjunctions and 
adverbs, and from the imperfections of the verb, Spinoza 
adds — Besides the three causes of obscurity now noted in 
the Hebrew language, there yet remain to be mentioned 
two others, each of much more moment than all the rest. 
The first of these is that the Hebrew has no vowels ; the 
second that it is without spaces between the words and sen- 
tences, and has no accents to indicate the proper pronuncia- 
tion ; and although these two deficiencies — viz., the vowels 
and signs of accentuation, are wont to be supplied by points, 
it is impossible that we should acquiesce in the sufficiency 
of these, inasmuch as they are the invention and resource of 
men of these later times, whose authority can have no 
weight with us. The ancient Hebrews wrote without 
points (Le., without vowels and accents), as appears from the 
most ample testimony. The moderns supplied vowel-points 
and accents, as it seemed good to them that the Bible 
should be interpreted ; wherefore they are to be regarded as 
mere interpretations of yesterday, and deserve no greater 
faith, as they have no higher authority, than the lucubra- 
tions of ordinary commentators."* Gresenius admits that 
the ancient translators of the Hebrew, " evidently so often 
translated by conjecture only."f 

In the following comments I shall seek to show that in 
its narrative the book of G-enesis is inaccurate, contradicted 
by other books of the Bible, and is even self- contradictory ; 
that its chronological statements are incorrect; that its 
teachings on ethnology, geology, and astronomy are in oppo- 
sition to the revelations of science ; and that its views o^ 
morality are not such as would aid in promoting general 
happiness if universally entertained. 

Eighty years ago Sir William Jones declared that either 
the first eleven chapters of Genesis are true, or the whole 
fabric of our national religion is false."! This conclusion 



♦ Tractatus, p. 156. 

t Hebrew Lexicon, by Leo, p. 17. 

J Asiatic H^j^arches, vol l, p 2?5. 



6 



OENESIS : 



is the simple truth, and is confirmed by the critical re- 
searches of the last half century. If the authenticity and 
divine origin of the Pentateuch can be successfully ques- 
tioned, the whole theolog}^ based upon it must fall with it. 
In the first eleven chapters of Genesis are contained 
statements upon which rest the so-called " vital truths of 
Christianity.'' The Eev. Alexander McCaui, in his reply to 
Colenso, feels this, and urges that the Pentateuch pos- 
sesses the testimony of the Saviour's omniscience,'' that it 

has the testimony of the Son of God and his inspired 
Apostles," and that "our Lord and his Apostles taught 
that the Pentateuch was given by Moses, and that he was 
the penman."* In these statements Dr. McCaul exagge- 
rates the real extent of New Testament corroboration, what- 
ever that may be worth; but no one can doubt that a 
Christian will cling to every possible support for Genesis, 
as the Saviour and Eedeemer will be the object of little faith 
if the narrative of the Pall be disbelieved (without which fall 
the salvation and redemption would have been unnecessary). 

I shall now take each chapter and verse in its Biblical 
order, and though this may not appear the most agreeable 
course, I hope that it will prove the most useful. In doing 
this I am much indebted to the recent work by Dr. Kalisch,f 
and only regret that the reasonings of that able author ap- 
pear to be very often in opposition to his facts. Chap. i. v. i. In 
the beginning." According to Bellamy,! Grotius rendered 
the word n^'UJb^'^ll Berashith, /y7^e7^ ^r^^ ; ^imQon, before ; 
tlx? Jerusalem Targum, m m5tZom;§ TertuHian, in power; 
Phi^o, Eabbi Bechai, and Castalio, in order, before all ; Maim- 
onides, who avowedly stretched interpretations to fit any 
hypothesis he might choose to sustain, with matter. Some 
to whom the Hindoo mythology was familiar, have rendered 
this verse By the first was created the Gods, the heavens, 
and the earth," In the Hindoo faith we are taught that the 
great Bram created the inferior Gods, the heavens, and the 



* Examination of Dr. Colenso, pp. 1, 208, and 210. 
t On Genesis, published by Longman, 1858. 
t The Holy Bible Newly Translated. 

§ The Jerusalem Targum substitutes b^^3'^n!2 Berashith. 



ITS AUTHO^t^TP AND AUTHENTICITY, 



7 



earth. Were the D^^H^i^ (ALEIM) inferior Gods in the 
mind of the compiler of the Hebrew Records ? M. Priaulx,* 
in commenting on this first verse, sajs — In the beginning 
of what ? Not of the universe certainly, for the universe yet 
was not ; and not of Q-od's existence, for God's existence 
is infinite and eternal." The Theism of the writer of 
the first verse of Genesis was of no exalted order. 
He had determined to tell a creation story, and probably re- 
peated in writing the tradition which had passed from sire 
to son, orally transmitted through many generations. That 
euch traditions existed long prior to the Jews themselves, 
and certainly anterior to Moses, few can doubt who have 
carefully examined the Egyptian, Hindoo, and Grecian 
mythologies, and have endeavoured to trace their origin, 
especially if they happen to hold with Sir W. Jones, that a 
connection subsisted between the old nations of Egypt, 
India, Greece, and Italy long prior to Moses. t The au- 
thor of the first verse of Genesis rendered the tradition 
into definite words without staying to notice, or perhaps 
lacking the mental power, to consider the logical conse- 
quences of his words. If in the beginning " does not imply 
the beginning of God or of the universe, it must mean in the 
beginning of creation. But this would imply that God, 
eternal, immutable, had existed without creating and chang- 
ing, then without cause had commenced to create. But if 
God alone existed prior to creation and at any time existed 
without creating, he, there being nothing but himself 
to afiect or influence him, would still have existed without 
creating — that is, there would have been no creation. 

The first and second verses of Genesis, which Dr. Kalischj 
Bays must not be separated, are very obscure. In the be- 
ginning God created the heaven and the earth, and the earth 
was without form and void, and darkness was upon the face 
of the deep." Is this second verse a recital of the state of 
the earth prior to or after creation ? Prior to creation seems 
to be the proper response ; that is, that the writer of this 



* Questiones Mosaicae. 

t Asiatic Researches, toI. 1, p 271. 

X Historical and Critical Commentary oa Genesis, p. 55. 



8 



GENESIS : 



part of Genesis having no conception of creation " other 
than formation/^ and holding the doctrine supported as 
Dr. John Pye Smith thinks in the apocryphal book of Wis- 
dom, c. ii. V. 17, tells you what was the state of things 
before the work of creation commenced. That this is so is 
clear from the fact that while it says, " In the beginning God 
created the heaven and the earth,'' actually the heaven is not 
created {vide v. 8) until the second day. The old phi- 
losopher said " ex nihilo nihil fit.'' Sir W. Hamilton observes 
that " to create is not to make something out of nothing, for 
this is contradictory, but to originate from self j' yet the ortho- 
dox doctrine of to-day is that Genesis teaches that God created 
the world out of nothing. Which shall we take, orthodoxy 
or philosophy? The Sev. Dr. John Pye Smith remarks 
that the mere etymological argument from b^'li or any 
other scripture w^ords, is fallacious and utterly unnecessary : 
since those wwds may be applied to ordering, disposing, or 
bringing into a new state or condition. The primary mean- 
ing of (BeEA) is to hew out.^'f Bellamy translates 
the word Jlb^ (ATh) substance, making verse i. read, In 
the beginning God created the substance of the heaven, and 
the substance of the earth," and thus to some extent avoid- 
ing a portion of the objection, which naturally arises with 
reference to the use of pre- existent material. Speaking of 
the word (ATh) he says, Some translators have thought 
it to be a mark of the accusative case simply, after an active 
verb ; but if so, there must be a repetition of the article the ; 
as the following word D'^Qtl) shaamaybn, heaven, has the 
emphatic prefix H ha, the ; by which it is to be translated, 
the heaven, I say if this word eth, comprehends no 
>nore than simply the accusative, there must either be a re- 
petition of the article the, and so D^^2tynJli^ eth hashama- 
yim, must be translated the, the heaven ; or the word 
eeth, must be passed over without being translated, as it is 
in the translations. But if this word be translated, it wiJl 
add consistency to the narrative, and remove an old objec- 
tion. It is said, that the historian contradicts himself, as 



* Philosophy of the Unconditioned, p. 8. 
t First Lines of Christian Theology, p, 321, 



ITS AUTflOESHIP AND AUTHENTICITY. 



9 



he says, the heaven and the earth were created and finished, 
and afterwards, that it rvas without form and void, and that 
darkness was upon the face of the deej?, until God said, lei 
there he light, First, that there was a completion of the 
whole, both of the heaven and the earth ; and then that there 
was nothing but chaotic darkness, and primseval matter. 
Certainly the present translations carry this sense ; but this 
has arisen from the rejection of the word eth. This word 
is composed of the first and last letter of the Alphabet, the 
^ aleph, and H thau ; which have the same meaning as the 
Greek a alpha and omega ; the arche kai telos, the first and 
the last, in one mass, comprehending in itself all the prmciples 
necessary for the production of all things. Briefly, it signi- 
fies the very substa^s^ce of the thing spoken of ; the i'^p 
har(C), inmost, generative properties, as well as the visible 
matter ; agreeably to tlie Syriac, the esse coeli et esse terra 
Dr. Kalisch, who seems by his phraseology to refer to the 
above quoted argument from Bellamy, utterly denies that the 
word is anything more than the sign of the accusative. 
When learned men thus differ on a word which changes the 
entire sense of the passage, how are the uneducated multi- 
tude to submit to threats of penalties here and pain here- 
after because of their unbelief, when in fact they are unable 
to believe tba^t both disputants are right, and are also unable 
to believe in one in preference to the other ? 

The Eev. Dr. Macdonaldf discusses from a somewhat or- 
thodox stand-point the question whether verse 1 should be 
taken as a title to, or read as part of, the history of creation ; 
and that writer inclines to the latter opinion, as he thinks 
the former view would favour the ancient notions of eternal 
chaos ; but the latter opinion is equally objectionable, for if 
verse 1 be regarded as anything more than a title, you 
have heaven created in verse 1, and yet not created until 
verses 6 to 8 ; you have the earth in verse 1, and yet the 
dry land not called earth until verse 10. Dr. John Pye 
Smith affirms — That the proper and primary act of crea- 
tion, is the causing of being when there was no cause, 



* New Translation, p, 4. 
t Creation and Fall, p. 245. 



10 



GE^STESIS : 



material means, or existing thing whatever except the 
Deity." The learned doctor's proposition is logically ab- 
surd, and on the face of it impossible, although it contains 
the ordinary orthodox teaching. He states that the adverse 
notion appeared in two forms— 1. That the whole sensible 
universe, and every part of it, is an emanation from Deity of 
coeval eternity and necessity. The very ancient Oriental 
doctrine, the foundation of Buddhism, dominant in Thibet, 
many parts of Tartary, the Burman Empire, and Ceylon. 2. 
The belief of a necessarily existing matter altogether distinct 
from God.* These two opinions will easily be traced in 
several portions of the Hebrew text, but are also as illogical 
as the first. 

Verse 2 — " And the earth was without form and void." 
Bellamy renders this — Now the earth was without form, 
even a waste." Kalisch — -'^ And the earth was dreariness 
and emptiness. Bellamy's translation is not forcible enough, 
the word IPQ (BETJ) should be rendered void or vacuum. 
The writer's meaning in the verse is not very clear, because 
that which is empty within and has no form without, is a 
very unsubstantial result of creation ; and it will at once 
overturn all orthodox notions, if creation be understood as 
the formation of the pre-existing chaotic mass. And 
darkness was upon the face of the deep." There is yet no 
light, darkness prevails, and the creation of light is not re- 
corded until verse 3 ; so that either the Creator had existed 
prior to this periodt without light, a most extraordinary, or, 
as Kalisch calls it, ludicrous " supposition, or the believer 
must imagine that the Unchangeable had more than once 
varied the conditions of his existence. Kalisch urges that 
improprieties are involved in these queries ; surely the 
greater impropriety consists in the demand of unquestion- 
ing belief in the opposite views. The spirit of God moved 
upon the face of the waters." Kalisch has it hovered 
over.*^ The word T^T\ (EUaCH) here translated spirit is 

* Pirst Lines of Christian Theology, p. 321. 

t And this is the Rev. Dr. Macdonald's opinion, for he says—" This 
is not the darkness T^hich T^as afterwards so far subdued and bounded 
by the light as to be called night, but the primeval darkness into which 
no ray of light had ever penetrated." 



ITS AUTHOftsHIP AND AXTTHENTICITY. 



11 



rendered wind by Aben Ezra, Onkelos, Philo, and others ; 
air by Nachmanides ; mist by Johannsen. In Genesis iii. 
8, the same word, Euach, is translated "cool." p!T\h 
DVn (LeEUaCh EIOM) being rendered in our authorised 
version as " the cool of the day/' or, as Parkhui^st renders 
it, " the morning breezeJ* In Ecclesiastes iii. 19, the same 
word is in the authorised version translated breath. The 
primary meaning of the word Euach, according to Park- 
hurst, is that of the air in motion as in the act ofhreathing, 
Gesenius and other Hebraists agree in this. Macdonald 
says — " To take Q'TlS^^ TVTS (^l^aCh ALEIM) for a strong 
wind, as is done by I)athe Yater and Schinmann, after 
Onkeios, Saadias, Aben Ezra, and other Jewish expositors, is 
an interpretation of which Calvin well remarks, ' Adeo 
frigidum est ut refutatione nulla indigeat.' The Hebrew 
can be undoubtedly rendered wind as well as spirit ; but 
how can it signify wind before the atmosphere was 
created ?''* How does this reverend writer know when the 
atmosphere was created, unless he has some special revelation 
enabling him to fix the epoch ? There is not the slightest re- 
cord, so far as I am aware, in Genesis enabling the reader 
to fix the time of the creation of the atmosphere, so that 
this objection to the word Euach, meaning wind, is, to 
adopt the very words ot Calvin, " so silly as not to require 
refutation.'^ The words translated Spirit of God," are 
Euach Aleim, the word rendered God being the word 
n^r]h^ (ALEIM). The meaninsf of this word Aleim is 
not easy to arrive at. Macdonald says the etymology is in- 
volved in much obscurity. It is probably a plural noun, but 
the derivation is a question for dispute. Some derive it 
from n^i^ (ALE) to curse, which would make Aleim, the 
cursers,^ an appropriate rendering, if the eternal damnation 
of unbelievers and disbelievers to brimstone flames so glibly 
preached by too many of the revivalist school had indeed 
any reality. Others derive it from (AL). This word 
Al is by the Septuagint translated on one occasion Ourana, 
heaven, and in the Phoenician worship the Sun was called 

* Creation and Fall, p. 249. 

t Newman's Lexicon, vol. 1, p. ^ — Paxkhurst, p. 19. 



12 



GENESIS : 



Al or Hel.* It is curious that the same word Al in the 

Hebrew stands for oah, and that in the Druidie worship 
entirely of Tsabaistic origin the oak was most sacred. 
Doubtless all the mythologies of the world have more or 
less a Tsabaistic source, most certainly Judaism derives 
some of its early pseudo history from astrologic myths. The 
use of this word Aleim alone in one part, and in another the 
word nin^ (YEUE) coupled with it or used separately, has 
enabled some of our Biblicists to distinguish in the Book of 
Genesis at least two narratives from different pens, which 
they entitle the Elohim document and the Jehovah docu- 
ment. The Grerman writers have most exhaustively dealt 
with the document theory. Luke Burke argues that " the 
first ten chapters of the Book of Genesis are composed 
throughout of at least three principal documents, so elabo- 
rately interwoven as to constitute one continuous and 
tolerably consistent narrative. It is highly probable," he 
says, " that the actual number of documents in these ten 
chapters is five, but the existence of three will be shown to 
be incontestible."t 

Dr. Colenso says — It will be seen hereafter, when we 
proceed to examine critically the whole Book of Genesis, 
that throughout the book the two different hands, which 
we have already detected, are distinctly visible ; and the re- 
cognition of this fact will explain at once a number of 
strange and otherwise unaccountable contradictions. One of 
these two writers, it will be found, is distinguished by the 
constant use of the word Elohim, the other by the intermix- 
ture with it of the name Jehovah, which two words appear 
as God and Loed (not ' Lord,' *^3*Tbi Adonai), in our 
English translation. Sometimes the latter writer uses only 
Jehovah for considerable intervals, as the other uses only 
Elohim : thus, in chapter i. verse 1, to chapter ii. verse 3, 
we have only Elohim thirty-five times; in chapter xxiv. 
only Jehovah nineteen times. Can any one believe that 
these two passages were written by one and the same 
writer ?" ^ 

* Parkhurst's Lexicon, p. 15. 

t Ethnological Journal, p. 202. 

X Part II., p. 175, the Pentateuch, &c. 



ITS AUTHOBSHIP AND AFTHENTTCITT. 



13 



Macdonald* remarks that the interchange of the divdne 
names in the Pentateuch was taken notice of at an earlv 
period. Among the Christian fathers. Tertullian, Chry- 
sostom, and Augustine, offered explanations. In the first 
sections of Genesis the change is not between Elohim (or 
Aleim) and Jehovah (or Teue), but between Elohim, which 
IS used constantly and exclusively in the first section, and 
the compound form Jehovah-El ohim, which appears in the 
second, with only three exceptions, where in the mouth of 
the serpent and of the woman it is Elohim. 

Verse 3 records the creation of light, and it has been fairly 
objected that the creation of light on the first day, and before 
the sun, which was not created until the fourth day, is a 
point of difficulty, and some orthodox commentators have 
adopted the most absurd theories to meet this objection. 
Kalisch suggests '^that on the first day the luminous 
matter was created, spreading through infinite space in its 
rarified state ; but that on the fourth day it was condensed 
into the light- giving bodies." This is in contradiction to 
the Bible narrative, which clearly does not regard light as 
infinite, but speaks of division of light from darkness ; nei- 
ther does it remove the difficulty. The solar system cannot 
be imagined to exist short of its central sun, much less can 
our earth, one of a dependent series, be conceived as exist- 
ing independently. Our solar system consists of various 
sized bodies revolving around the huge central sun, all 
the planets of this system moving nearly in one plan e, cor- 
responding with the centre of the sun's body, and in one 
direction — namely, from west to east. There is also in 
the solar system a progressive increase of bulk and diminu- 
tion of density from the planet Mercury to Mars, while from 
Jupiter to Neptune, the reverse is the case.t This should 
mark the sun as primal in order, and give to the earth at 
least a tertiary place, while in the Grenesaie story the earth 
is before the sun. To imagine the earth without the sun 
would be to picture it under inconceivable conditions. Even- 
ing and morning, day and night, are spoken of in this verse. 

* Creation and Fall, p. 28. 

t Vestiges of Creation, p, 10 ; Kalisch, Genesis, p. 17. 



14 



GE^fESTS : 



The terms evening/' morning/' day/' " night," now 

express clear ideas, but take away the sun entirely, how do 
you have any rational conception of meaning for either 
morning, day, evening, or night ? The notions of appear- 
ance to us of the sun above the horizon, and its disappear- 
ance from us below the horizon, are involved in the use of 
these words, which otherwise are inconceivable.* The third 
verse begins with and Aleim said," that is " spoke," but 
speaking implies the possession by the speaker of the organs 
of speech, tongue, larynx, &c. (as the phrase " Grod saw" 
will involve " eye," optic nerve, &c., in the God seeing.) 
And to whom did God speak ? Was it to one of us " men- 
tioned in verse 22? It is from such phrases Parkhurst 
demonstrates, to his own satisfaction, the orthodox doctrine 
of the trinity. To the less orthodox reader such expressions 
will rather serve to demonstrate the polytheistic views of 
the writer of the Elohim document, as well as the anthropo- 
theism which pervades the Hebrew scriptures. In verse 6, 
God divides the waters by a firmament i^'^p'^ EeQIO (ex- 
panse.) This was to have waters above and waters beneath 
it, and the stars were afterwards fixed in it. Where is now 
this firmament ? If it means the atmosphere, there is no 
water above it, the clouds float in it, and the stars are not 
in it. Kalisch says, this firmament is the expanse of 
heaven, that is, including the stars — t.e., the central suns 
of many astral and solar systems. But what waters are 
divided above and beneath this expanse, which is, according 
to such an explanation, itself the universe ? He says, The 
earth, illumined by all- pervading light, was freed from the 
encumbering mass of water ; an adequate portion was con- 
gregated in immeasurable distance above it, beyond a solid 
expanse, intended to mark this eternal division. "f This 
explanation is entirely unjustified by science, and this " solid 
expanse" dividing earth from the waters, exists only in the 
fertile brain of the commentator. M. Priaulx points out 
the full absurdity of the text when he says, " the expanse 
not merely divides, but sustains the waters, and when rain 
is about to be poured down upon the earth, the windows 



♦ Questiones Mosaicae, pp. 13, 14. 
Genesis, &c., p. 69. 



ITS AtriHOEsHIP Al^B AUTHEITTICITT. 



15 



or floodgates of heaven are said to be opened.^'* The doc- 
trine of a local heaven above the earth, and used as the 
general abiding place of Deitj, from whence at various 
periods he descended to the earth, is supported by the 
general tenor of Genesis, yet I doubt whether even any 
thoughtful Theist would entertain an opinion so opposed to 
the infinity of God. The early chapters of Genesis profess 
to relate the creation and fall of man, but incongruities and 
contradictions exist, demonstrating either that the Book is 
not reliable, or that, instead of being an account of one 
creation, the chapters in fact contain two distinct accounts 
of separate creations. The first probably written by one 
who knew nothing about the garden of Eden, or the Fall, or 
of Cain or Abel, and whose account breaks off at verse 3 of 
chapter ii., and recommences with verse 1 of chapter vi. 

The two distinct narratives are easily traced^ and the 
English reader may find this done for him by Luke Burke, 
who prints the selected portions in order. t He makes the 
Elohim document begin with Genesis i. 1, and go to ii. 3 
inclusive, then omitting all until verse 1 of chapter vi., re- 
commences and continues with some omissions which 
deserve the attention of the reader as sho^^dng a duplicate 
narrative of the flood as well as a double account of the 
creation. These will be dealt with in their proper place in 
this commentary. The orthodox deny that there are two 
accounts of the creation in the two first chapters, and allege 
that in no sense can these chapters be viewed as distinct 
narratives of creation. The first, they say, is a narrative 
of creation in all its parts, order, and proportions, but 
sketched only in outline ; while the second is a filling up of 
one of the compartments of this grand picture that is, 
they allege that the fourth and following verses of the 
second chapter sre really only a continuation and amplifica- 
tion of the relation contained in the first chapter. The 
truth of this declaration will be best tested by ascertaining 
whether there is such an agreement between the two chap- 
ters in the treatment of similar subjects as (allowing for the 



Questiones MosaicaSj p. 16. 
Ethnological Journal, 1848, p. 205. 
Macdonald : Creation and Fall, p. 39, 



16 



GENESIS : 



second account being more ample and extended) will deter- 
mine if the narrative in the second chapter is really an 
amplified continuation of the first. Some allege that onlj 
the first chapter gives the order of time, and that the 
second gives the order of importance. 

Dr. Kalisch makes no such futile pretensions, but when 
he arrives at the end of the third verse of the second chap- 
ter says, *^ A languid repetition appears to follov/, another 
cosmogony is introduced, which, to complete the perplexity, 
is in many important features in direct contradiction with 
the first. It would be dishonest to conceal these difficulties, 
it would be weak-mindedness and cowardice ; it would be 
flight instead of combat; it would be ignoble retreat instead 
of victory: we confess there is an apparent dissonance.'^ 
The dissonance is not only apparent, it is real and irremov- 
able, as I shall seek to show in the following remarks. 
Assuming the second narration to commence chapter ii. 
verse 4, it may easily be divided into three sections— 1st. 
from verse 4 to verse 9 inclusive, containing an account of the 
creation of the heavens, earth, and dormant plants, of irri- 
gation by mist, and, in conjunction therewith, the creation 
of man; this section also contains the announcement that 
the Lord Grod had formed a garden eastward in Eden, and 
planted it with every tree pleasant to sight and good for 
food, and the trees of life and knowledge of good and evil ; 
and had placed man therein ; 2nd, from verse 10 to verse 17, 
contains a geographical description of the garden, also a 
repetition of the announcement that the man was placed in 
the garden with the additional information that he was 
placed there to dress and keep it; 3rd, from verse 18 to 
end of chapter, includes the declaration that the Lord God 
will make a helpmeet for man, the creation and naming of 
the animals, and the manufacture of woman from the rib 
of the man. 

As the separate subjects of these sections are distinct and 
easily distinguishable, w^e shall proceed to place them in 
comparison with similar subjects in the first chapter. With 
regard to the creation of light, the division of day and 
night, the creation of the firmament, the sun, moon, and 
stars, as narrated in the first chapter, they find so meagre 



ITS AUTHORSHIP AND AUTHENTICITY. 17 

a parallel in the second, as to leave no room for useful com- 
parison, although so far as these suhjects are concerned, 
the second chapter in no respect amplifies or extends the 
narrative, but on the contrary, renders it more limited. 

The creation of pljJnts affords more scope for examination 
and is thus described in chapter i., verses 11, 12: according 
to which the earth brought forth grass, herbs, and fruit 
trees, growing and yielding fruit and seed before the crea- 
tion of man ; while we are informed in the second chapter 
that God made the dormant plants, but that they were not 
put in the earth, and had not grown, or, as Kalisch trans- 
lates it, *^ sprouted forth," because there had not been any 
rain, and there was no man to till the ground ; and the 
creation of man precedes the narrative of the commence- 
ment of vegetation. According to chapter ii. verse 5, the 
earth was dry and unbroken, therefore unfit to receive the 
dormant germs of the plants. In order to remove this dis- 
ability, God first moistened the earth by a mist, then created 
man to cultivate it. The stated preliminary obstacles t*^ 
vegetation are removed, and the requirements are supplier 
— L 6., water to irrigate and man to till. This being ac- 
complished, a garden is planted, and man is placed in it te 
tend it ; after which, the usual course of vegetation proceeds. 

There is in this a grave dissonance. In the first chapter, 
at the command of God tbe earth brings forth grass, herbs, 
and trees, yielding seed and bearing fruit, without mention 
of pre-requisite conditions or obstacles ; but in the second 
chapter vegetation cannot take place until the soil has been 
watered and tilled. In the first chapter the entire flora was 
created, grew, brought forth seed, and yielded fruit, prior 
to the creation of man 5 growing plants are created on the 
third day, man on the sixth; while in the second chapter 
the plants do not commence to grow until after tbe creation 
of man, who would thus be in existence on or before the 
third day. The comparison, as far as yet attempted, has 
elicited so striking an instance of incongruity as would of 
itself be sufficient to demonstrate that the account in the 
second chapter is not in harmony with that of the first. If 
the account in chapter ii. does not agree with the previous 
chapter^ then we must admit either that the two accourts 



18 



GENESIS : 



relate to different original creations (which would trr mani- 
festly absurd), or that one of the chapters, or both of them, 
are false. 

There seems ground for asserting that these chapters are 
the productions of different countries, and that the climatic 
conditions associated with, and influencing, the writer of 
chapter i., were extremely different from those affecting the 
writer of chapter ii. The author of the first chapter seems 
to have been perplexed by a quantity of superfluous water. 
Water covered the whole of the earth ; and after having 

tot rid of a portion of this water by placing it above the 
rmament, the remainder is collected into seas, leaving the 
dry land to appear. The author of the second chapter, on 
the contrary, is at first deficient of water. The earth is for 
him too dry for vegetation, and he waters it with a mist, 

"We proceed to compare the account of the creation of 
animals, which is set forth more fully. 

In default of any professed consecutive order in the second 
chapter's narrative of creation, it would be a natural assump- 
tion that the gramnivorous animals would not be created 
before their food, and this is confirmed by the first chapter, 
where the vegetation is created on the third day, and the 
animals on the sixth. Man is also created on the sixth day 
after the animals, but, as according to the second chapter, 
man assisted in bringing forth vegetation, he must have 
been created before the plants and likewise before the 
animals. That is to say, in the second chapter man is 
produced at an early period of creation and prior to the 
animals, while in the first chapter man is created after the 
animals, and is, in fact, the last object created. These 
contradictions clearly prove that the two chapters cannot 
possibly be accounts by the same author of one and the 
same creation. 

The same distinction is observable as to the material 
used in the production of animals. 

In chapter i. verse 20, w^e are told that the moving crea- 
tures and the fowls of the air were produced from the waters ; 
but in chapter ii. verse 19, it is stated that they were formed 
out of the ground. 

The difference of time, and the relative priority in the 



ITS ACTHORSHLF AND AUTHENTICITY. 19 



creation of man and the animals, can be otherwise indepen- 
aently proved by reference to chapter ii. verses r and 19, 
and the 20th and following verses of the first chapter. 

In chapter ii. verse IS. it is said. It is not good for the 
man to be alone. I will make an helpmeet for him."' This 
evidently alludes to the man of verse 7. for the m.an of the 
first chapter had his female created with him, and only one 
act of creation is related, male and female created ho 
them." After the Deity had announced his intention in 
the second chapter of creating ^' an helpmeet for the man, 
the narrative relates the creation of animals, and that they 
were brought to Adam to be named, but for Adam 
there was not found an helpmeet for him.'' The tenor of 
this second chapter narrative is to place man hefore the 
animals (and, according to our previous argument, on the 
third day prior to them) in the order of creation, while in 
the first chapter, on the contrary, man is created after the 
animals and on the same day with them. In the second 
chapter man is created alone, and in solitude performed hi^ 
labours in the garden. Xo friendly hand to aid him in his 
toil, he is emphatically declared to have been aloiie, It is 
not good that man should be alone, I will make an helpmeet 
for him.*' It is perfectly clear that this act of making the 
helpmeet for man took place after the beast of the field and 
the fowl of the air had passed before Adam to be named, 
and there is. therefore, no alternative btit to assign the end 
of the creation as the period wiien the Lord made a 
woman and brought her to man."'' Thus the man of the 
second chapter (who ^^•a5 fabricated from the dust of the 
ground before the plants grew, which was, according to 
chapter one. on the third day of creation) is proven to have 
been in existence on the third day previous to the making 
of his female : \shile the man of the first chapter has his 
female created simultaneously with him. The same may be 
said of the females. One female has her male created 
simultaneously with her. while the creation of birds and 
beasts interposes between that of the man and woman of the 
second chapter. Hence neither the male nor female of one 
chapter can be understood to be that of the other — they are 
two distinct pairs. 



20 



GENESIS : 



Again, in the dedication of food to mankind, the palpabfe 
incongruity of statement thrusts itself upon our attention. 
In chapter i. verse 29, God said, " Behold I have given you 
every herb bearing seed which is upon the face of all the earth, 
and every tree in which there is the fruit of a tree yielding 
seed, to you it shall be given for meat." Here is a gift 
without reservation of every herb bearing seed, and every 
tree bearing fruit, which is upon the face of the earth. The 
terms are clear and distinct, " to you it shall be for meat 
there is no exception. Yet in chapter ii. verse 17, are the 
words, But of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, 
thou shalt not eat.'' Nay, more, by chapter iii. verse 22, it 
is evident that the <^ tree of lite " was not intended for meat 
for man. 

The discordance in this case is not limited to the mere 
exception of a particular tree from the gift to man, but, in 
fact, extends throughout the whole of the ^Scriptures, as 
upon the truth or falsity of the exception of the tree of 
knowledge of good and evil hangs the whole of the Chris- 
tian reLgion. If no exception were made, then no com- 
mand was broken, no sin committed, no curse merited; 
there was no fall, and, therefore, no necessity for a redemp- 
tion or Eedeemer. 

M. Priaulx* in his examination makes reference to the 
Heathen mythologies as suggesting possible sources for 
some of the traditions ; he also quotes Michaelis, De Wette, 
and other authors, whose criticisms may guide the unlearned 
reader. To illustrate the points of discord, the following 
epitome of the two accounts is presented to the reader ;— 

First. Second, 



Water abundant. 
Vegetation proceeds at 
God's fiat. 

Plants grow in the earth 
before man's creation. 



Water deficient. 

Vegetation is dependent 
on moisture and agricultural 
labours. 

Plants cannot grow in the 
earth until man has tilled th© 
ground. 



* Questiones, t>p, 6 to 83. 



ITS AUTHORSHIP AND AUTHENTICITY. 



Fowls made out of the 
water. 

Animals created before 
man. 

Man and woman created 
same day, 

Man made to have do- 
minion over the earth. 

Every fruit given to man 
for food. 

Concludes with blessingo 



Fowls made out of the 
ground. 

Man created before ani- 
mals. 

Man created first, then an 
interval for creation and 
naming animals, then woman 
made, 

Man made only to dress 
the Garden of Eden. 

One kind forbidden, and 
another withheld. 

Concludes with cursing. 



Is it not justifiable to say, in the words of Kalisch, 
those difierences are too obvious to be overlooked or 
denied ?" 

Some time has elapsed since even the most pious amongst 
educated men argued that the universe was created out of 
nothing no longer than 6,000 years ago ; but it is not yet 
very far distant from the day when all the orthodox 
preachers of theology, and ordained mdsrepresenters of the 
declarations of science, united in declaring that the Bible 
taught that man had only existed on the earth 6,000 
years ; and pious geologists then proved, at any rate to 
their own satisfaction, that the world's strata and the 
Hebrew Eecords bore like testimony to the modern origin of 
the human family. There are few men of superior attain- 
ments as philologists, ethnologists, geologists, or archaeolo- 
gists who still entertain this doctrine, which is conserved 
specially by those persons in whom the maximum of faith 
is accompanied by the minimum of knowledge. There are 
ignorant frequenters of Little Bethels, some of whom even 
yet limit the age of the world to the Bible period — this class 
diminishes as schools multiply. Many who feel the strain 
on their faith resulting from the discoveries of the last 
thirty years, declare that the Bible does not limit man's 
existence to 6,000 years, and are of opinion that the 
Genesaic record leaves him a much longer term of mundane 
existence. This opinion is an erroneous one, and its refii- 



22 



genesis: 



tation will be apparent on a careful examination of the texth 
Fortunately an arithmetical test may be applied, and a 
result arrived at in reference to the Hebrew Chronology 
which, if not precise, shall be sufficiently exact to determine 
the controversy to an unprejudiced reader. 

It cannot be denied that a grave difficulty meets us at 
the outset of an examination of the chronology of Genesis 
— viz., that the figures given in the Hebrew, Samaritan, and 
Septuntj:int versions are not respectively to the same effect, 
the ditlerences amounting to several centuries. This clash- 
ing of the chronologies of the various versions sorely 
militates against the reliability of the whole. But the Grene- 
saic Clironology is not only unreliable from its contradictions 
in the various versions, but is impeachable from the phy- 
siologic.! 1 and archaeological points of view. The enormous 
longevity of the patriarchs has been attacked by Luke 
Burke on physiological grounds.* He affirms that All 
careful investigation of the facts of natural history will 
prove that there are determinate relations between the 
period of puberty and the total duration of life. In birds 
the multiple is sometimes very high, in fishes still more 
so ; but in the mammalia generally, and especially in man, 
it will be found that the highest possible duration of life is 
seven times the age of finished puberty. Few human 
beings, especially in civilised life, ever reach this period ; 
none, we believe, have ever exceeded it. The age of puberty 
greatly varies in different races of men, and the natural 
duration of their liv^s is longer or shorter accordingly. 
Now the chronology before us is at utter variance with this 
great l.nv of nature. Mahal aleel begot Jared at the age of 
65, and lived 895 years afterwards, more than thirteen 
times the period of complete puberty. This is the same as 
saying that a person whose natural life would extend to 80, 
90, or 1 00 years, might be a man and have children at the 
age of G, 7, or 8 years. In the post-diluvian period, we 
have even a higher multiple than this. Salah begot Eber in 
his thirtieth year, and yet lived 433 years : more than fourteen 
times the age at which his son was born. All genuine 



* Ethnological Journal, p. 114. 



ITS AUTHORSHIP AND AUTHElf^TICITY. 



23 



history is entirely opposed to the admission of such extreme 
longevity. Neither in ancient nor modern times is there 
one authenticated instance of any human being having 
reached the age of 200 years, to say nothing of such 
enormous periods as 969 years." This objection is of 
tremendous weight, and has nowhere been effectually 
replied to, so far as I have been able to ascertain. Priaulx* 
points out that similar exaggerated notions of longevity are 
to be found in the Egyptian, Chinese, and Hindoo mytho- 
logies. 

According to the ordinary authorised version of the Bible, 

not only does man's existence seem to be limited to 6,000 years, 
but the creation of the world itself very little antedates the 
scriptural origin of the human race. That is, I affirm — and 
in this I am supported by the orthodox chronological tables 
in use at each of the Universities — that the Bible declares man 
and the universe to have originated about 6,000 years ago. 
Adam, who was made at farthest on the sixth day of the crea- 
tion, has, when 130 years old,t a son Seth, to whom at the age 
of 105 Enos is born,J who has when 90, a son Cainan. Maha- 
laleel, his son, is born when his father is 70, § and Mahalaleel 
is 65 at the birth of Jared, || who bears Enoch at the ripe age of 
162.1[ Methuselah is born when Enoch is 65,** and Lameeh 
when Methuselah was 187. tt This brings us to Noah, who is 
born when Lamech's age is 182.tJ The Deluge took place 
when Noah was 600,§§ so that from the creation of Adam 
to the flood would be, according to the authorised version 
of the Genesaic chronology, 1656 years. There is from this 
era to the time of Terah a curious diminution in the ages 
of the patriarchs at the time of the birth of their respective 
first-borns. Two years after the flood, Arphaxad is born 



* Questiones, p. 257. f Genesis, v. 3. % V. 6. 

§ V. 12. II V. 15. ^ V 18. 

♦* V. 21. With reference to Methuselah, the reader may be icterested 
to know that the Septuagint fixes his birth Aooo Mundi 1287, and 
makes him die in 2256 ; but according to the same Septuagint, the 
Deluge took place A, M, 2242, so that Methuselah must have surTired 
the flood fourteen years. (See Ethnological Journal, pp. 82 91.) 

tt V. 25. tt V. 28. §§ C. Yii. 11. 1111 C. xi. 10. 



2% 



genesis: 



he has attained 35* at the birth of Salah, who is SOf when 
Eber is born. Eber begets Peleg at 34,^ to whom Eeu is 
born at 30. § Serug is born when Reu|| is 32, and Nahor 
when Serug is 30.^ Terah is born when Nahor is 29,** 
and Abram when Terah is 70.tt Isaac, the son of the 
promise, is born when Abraham is exactly a centenarian. J J 
Isaac was sixty at the birth of Jacob. §§ When Jacob was 
130, he went to reside in Egypt,^^ making to that date a 
total from the creation of the world of about 2238 years :* 
The period of the sojourn in Egypt was, according to Exodus, f 
i30 years, but was 400 according to ActsJ and Genesis. § 
This period is also calculated at 215 or 210 years || by those 
ivho have felt themselves embarrassed in the endeavour to 
explain this portion of the Hebrew Chronology. Beckon- 
ing the sojourn of the Jews in Egypt after Jacob's descent 
at about 215 years^ and adding 40 years for the rule of 
Moses, ^ we are brought to Joshua and the Judges. No 
exact dates can be fixed for the rule of the Judges, but it 
will probably not be an unfair estimate to allow between 
400 and 500 years from Moses to David, although, accord- 
ing to the chronological tables by Nott and Gliddon,** 
founded on the genealogies given in Kings, Chronicles, and 
Josephus, the period varies from about 200 to about 400 
years. The shorter the period the stronger the case against 
the Bible Chronology. Munk says that it is impossible 
to present any historical tableau of the history of the 
Shopetim (Judges), The Book of Judges he does not 
consider historical, but declares that everything in it is 
recounted without regularity, and events succeed each other 
without regard to chronological order.ff A more extended 
or briefer period will be allowed for the rule of these 



* V. 12. t V. 14. t V. 16. § V. 18. D 2a 
H V. 22. ** V. 24. tt V. 26. jj C. xxi. 5. 

§§ C. xxY. 26. nil C. xlvii. 9, Ethno. Journal, pp. 11-19 

* Exod. xii. 41. f Acts vii. 6. % Gen. xv. 13. 

§ Dr. Giles's Hebrew Eecords, p. 184 ; Colenso, Part I., p. 95 j 
but see Kalisch on Genesis, 369. 
H Exod. vii. 7, Deut. xxxi. 2. % Types of Mankind, p. 710, 

*♦ Palestine, Geographique, Historiqae, &c, 
•ft What and How of the Eternal, p. 131. 



ITS AUTHORSHIP AND AUTHENTICITY. 



23 



Ismelitish Judges, according to the views of the calculator 
as to the simultaneous or successive careers of any of the 
Judges ; but no such contraction or extension can mate- 
rially affect this argument. From David to the Captivity 
there are 22 reigns, making about 473 years, which are' 
very clearly and distinctly stated, and thence to the sup- 
posed nativity of Jesus about 580 years, thus making in all, 
according to the Bible chronology, about 4000 years from 
Adam to Jesus. This will give the ordinary orthodox 
total of a little less than 6,000 years for man's existence on 
earth, and it is certain that the received version of the 
Bible teaches this doctrine, and also that the same authority 
declares that the whole human family find a common 
parentage in one pair, Adam and Eve. On the other hand 
there are ethnologists of no mean repute, and geologists of 
undoubted ability, who respectively affirm that man has 
existed on the earth for many chiliads prior to the Adamic 
era. The ethnologists declare that as far as we can trace 
the human race we detect apparently isolated groups diverse 
in type, and they deny that there is any evidence to mark 
one pair as the source of the whole human race ; but that 
on the contrary many centres of origin are probably trace- 
able for each type. I ^^nll first offer a few illustrations of 
the antiquity of the human race, and then discuss its unity 
of origin. Sir William Jones some years since advanced 
the strongest arguments in favour of the antiquity of the 
Airyan races, and later Bun sen fixes one dispersion of the 
Airyans from Airyana Vaedjo at 5,000 years before the 
Christian era.* This calculation presumes centuries of 
pre-historic existence. Dr. Xott says, speaking of Egypt,t 
— Not only the tattered fragments of her history handed 
down to us by the Hebrews, by Herodotus, Manetho, 
Eratosthenes, Eusebius, Diodorus, &c. ; but her pyramids 
of 5,000 years, her massy and gorgeous temples, her 
obleisks, her stone tablets, her sepulchres of the dead, her 
numerous papyri, and even the mummied skulls of pri- 
meval races found in her catacombs, bear witness that Egypt 



• Biblical and Physical History of Man, p, ?8, 
t Origin of Species, p. 18, 



26 



genesis: 



was old, populous, and civilized 1,000 years before Abra- 
ham that is, that Egypt was peopled and ancient 
amongst peoples long prior to the Bible date of the Deluge. 
Darwin says that ^' M. Horner^s researches have rendered 
it in some degree probable that man, sufficiently civilised 
to have manufactured pottery, existed in the valley of the 
Nile tliirteen or fourteen thousand years ago."* Fragments 
of manufactured brick have been found in the delta of the 
Kile, for which an antiquity of 30,000 years has been 
claimed, but how far the calculations supporting this hypo- 
thesis are reliable is a matter in dispute. f Dr. Bennet 
Dowler claims for a human skeleton discovered in the delta 
of the Mississippi no less than 57,t)00 years. His estimate is 
founded amongst other items on a calculation of the age of 
the over-lying cypress forests, and is capable, according to 
Sir Charles Lyell,^: of investigation under very favourable 
conditions. 

Thomas Henry Huxley says, Sufficient grounds exist 
for the assumption that man co-existed with the animals 
found in the diluvium, and many a barbarous race may, 
before all historical time, have disappeared together with the 
animals of the ancient world. "§ Sir Charles Lyell sup- 
ports the statement that North America was peopled 
more than a thousand centuries ago by the human race.|| 
He suggests that Europe was peopled antecedent to the 
division of Ireland from England, or of England from 
France ; a theory which would carry man's existence back 
to ages extremely remote. Those of the orthodox who cling 
to the BAle notion that the world was made 6,000 years 
ago, must feel a strange liorror when reading Darwin's 
supposition of " a longer period than 300 million years " 
for the denudation of the weald by the action of the sea.^ 
How will the pious acceptors of the Bible doctrine, that all 
the animals were created at most a few days prior to man, 
regard Charles Darwin's statement that *^an infinite 



* Lyell's Antiquity of Man, p. 38. 
f Lyeirs Antiquity of Man, p. 43. 
§ IVlan's Place in Nature, p. 136. 
jj Antiquity of Man, pp. 204-289. 



X Types of Mankind, p. 338. 
^ Origin of Species, p. 28 7. 



ITS AUTHORSHIP AND AUTHENTICITt, 



27 



number of generations which the mind cannot grasp must 
have succeeded each other in the long roll of years ?" 

Baron Bunsen claims an antiquity for the human race of 
at least 20,000 years prior to the Christian era, and traces 
in Egypt a double empire of hereditary kings to 5413 B.C. 
(that is, to near 1000 years prior to the time of Adam). 
Before these he discovers elective kings reaching back to 
7230 B.C. Prior to these, priest kings, the first of whom 
(Bytis the Theban) ascended the throne B.C. 9085. Farther 
back still does Bunsen trace the Egyptian peoples by the 
aid of their pyramids, their obelisks, their stone records, 
rescued from tlie sand ocean which for centuries had hidden 
thetn from human gaze.* 

In Greece itself, for which no such antiquity of history can 
be claimed as for the land of the Mle, the Pelasgic occupa- 
tion carries us back into the night of time. 

Unless we are to reject as utter fable the words of Plato, 
historic records had been preserved by the priests of Sais 
relating to Greece extending over a period of nbout 9000 
years prior to Solon.f Plato expressly affirms this to be 
in every respect true. 

The unity of the origin of the human race is a subject 
which must not be confused with that of the unity of species. 
It is quite consistent to deny a common origin, and yet to 
accept sameness of species. Humboldt says — Les recherche 
geographiques sur le siege primordial, ou, comme on dit, 
sur le berceau de I'espece humaine, ont dans le fait un carac- 
tere purement mythique. ^Nous ne connaissons,' dit 
Gruillaume de Humboldt, dans un travail encore inedit sur la 
diversite des langues et des peuples, ' Nous ne connaissons 
ni historiquement, ni par aucune tradition certaine un 
moment ou I'espece humaine n'ait pas ete separee en grou- 
pes de peuples.-' " Geographical researches on the primor- 
dial seat, or, as it is called, the cradle of human kind, are in 
fact purely mythic in their character. ' We do not know,* 
says William von Humboldt, in a work as yet unpublished 
on the diversity ol languages and peoples, ' We do not know, 

* Egyptens Stelle, quoted by Gliddon; Indigenous Races, p. 579. 
t The Timaeus, sec. 6, Davis's trauslatioa, vol. 2, p. 327, The 
Ctitias, sec. 3, p. 415; sec, 5, p. 418. 



28 



GBNESIS : 



either historically or by any certain tradition, any period 
when the human race was not separated into groups of 
peoples.' 

Kalisch argues that ethnographic inquiries have estab- 
lished the fact that if the human race does not descend 
from one pair, it certainly belongs to one species." He 
admits that the lormer supposition has been rejected by 
many intelligent and competent scholars, and that a 
plurality of first parents brought forth in different centres 
seems to be more and more extensively adopted.t 

Dr. Morton says that he can see no satisfactory explana- 
tion of the diverse phenomena that characterise physical 
man except in the doctrine of an original plurality of 
races/'t 

To adopt the language of Dr. August Zeune, inasmuch 
as it has not yet occurred to anybody to sustain that all figs 
have sprung from a solitary primitive fig, even as little can 
any one admit the whole of mankind to be derived lineally 
from a single human pair. Wherever the conditions for 
life were, there life has been. Ethnologists to-day divide 
humankind into at least three great races — Mongolian, 
Ethiopian, and Caucasian.§ These are each subdivided, 
and the diversities of humanity traced out are of a most 
striking character. 

" In the Mongolian type the skull is of a square shape, 
rather angular than rounded; head of a heavy form, 
though not large ; capacity varying from 69 to 73 cubic 
inches : facial angle sloping backwards from 70° to 80^. 
The cheekbones are high and project outwards ; the nose 
is flat, and on the same level with the cheekbones ; the arch 
of the eyebrow is scarcely perceptible; nostril narrow; 
the edge of the jaw slightly rounded forward, and the chin 
prominent. The face is broad and flattened without any 
distinguishing depression, the space between the eyes is 
flat and very broad ; lips generally well formed and not 
thick, cheeks round and projecting, nose broad and flat, 

* Humboldt's Cosmos, par Faye. 

■f On Genesis, p. 33. f Types of Mankind, p. 305. 

§ Some contend for five distinct races, some for more. The science 
of ethnology is not yet matured. 



ITS ArTHOESHIP ASJ) AUTHEXTICITT. 



29 



The line of the outer eyelids extends towards the temples, 
the skin being drawn up by the unusual protruberance of 
the cheek bones, while the internal angle is depressed 
towards the nose, and the upper eyelid at this point is 
continued into the uuderlid by a rounded sweep, the eyes 
thus appearing as if placed obliquely ; eyes small and iris 
dark. Skin of an olivaceous tint, varying from sallow lemon- 
peel to brownish yellow, but never very lair or intensely 
swarthy. Hair coarse, lank and black, beard scanty, not 
curly, partially or wholly wanting at the ears, and hair 
scanty on other parts of the skin. Body square, stature 
rather low, trunk long, extremities rather short, wrists and 
ankles weak."* 

" The Ethiopian embraces the African central type and its 
varieties. An elongated narrow cranium, crisp and curly 
hair, jaws more or less projecting, thick lips, and black or 
dusky skin, are its general characteristics ; but there are 
two marked divisions— the true Negro of Western Africa, 
and the Kaffirs of the South, besides various intermixtures, 

''In the Xegro the skull is narrow and compressed 
at the sides, and elongated from front to back ; the 
dome arched and dense ; the forehead convex, retreating, 
and narrow j the contour of the head is smooth compared to 
the angular form of the Mongol ; the cheek bones project 
forward ; the bridge of the nose is small and flat, the nostrils 
round and wide ; both jaws are much elongated, edges nar- 
row and elliptical ; front teeth somewhat oblique. The 
whole skull is thick and heavy, facial angle from 65^ to 70° ; 
the mouth wide, with very thick lips ; the face is nar- 
row, and projects greatly in the lower part ; chin retracted; 
eyes prominent and rather large, iris black, vessels of the 
eye suffused with a bilious tinge. The hair in infaiitv^ rises 
from the skin in small mamillary tufts, disposed in irregular 
quincunx; in adults, it is of a crisp woolly texture, except 
tlie eyebrows and eyelashes ; beard scanry on the upper lip, 
and chiefly confined to the point of the chin, except in late 

* Space does not permit me to give the distinguisliing an i differing 
characteristics of Malay, Australian, and American sul divisions of 
the Mongolian type ; though indeed to me they are so sufficiently 
striking as almost to constitute distinct types. 



30 



GENESIS : 



manhood ; a few tufts of hair are on the breast, but the 
arms and legs are bare. Hair on the head woolly and curled 
in the pure races, never hanging loose or rising into a mop ; 
body strong, muscular, and very symmetrical; bones of the 
fore-arm somewhat elongated ; shin-bones of legs slightly 
bent forward, and calves placed high up ; the feet broad, 
heavy, and soles flat; the heel-bone projecting. Skin so^t 
and silky to the touch: in the new-born infant, dull cherry 
red — in adults, varying from a deep sallow to an intense 
black ; emits a strong offensive odour, especially under expo- 
sure to the sun.'* 

In the Caucasian type — " Ihe head is almost round, or 
somewhat oblong, and the skull is smooth, rounded, 
and of the most symmetrical form, with a full deve- 
lopment of the anterior portion ; the cheek-bones are rather 
narrow, withou' any undue projection ; the jaws are rounded, 
the front teeth of each being placed perpendicularly ; the 
capacity of the skull, according to the measurement of Dr. 
Morton, fron 75 to 109 cubic inches, the facial angle rising 
75^ to nearly 90^. The face is of a round, or more generally 
oval shape, and the features moderately prominent ; the 
forehead arched ; the nose narrow, slightly arched, or at least 
with the bridge somewhat convex ; the mouth small, with the 
lips slightly turned out, especially the lower one, and the 
outline gracefully waved; the cijin full and round ; colour of 
skin fair and ruddy (^XantnOus\ or of various shades of 
brown {Melanous) ; hair abundant on head and chin, gene- 
rally soft, smooth, and wavy, and dispersed also on other 
parts of skin — colour various, according to complexion, from 
a yellow-red auburn and deep brown to glossy black : colour 
of iris of eyes also various, from shades of blue to hazel, dark 
brown and black; eyes generally full; medium stature, ap- 
proaching to six feet in the Xanthous, and from five feet 
three to five inches in the Melanous ; muscular strength, 
energy, and endurance generally considerable — in many 
superior." 

These varieties of human kind may now be found on the 
earth's surface. Do they trace their origin to one pair ? 
Or are they severally indigenous to their own soil and cli- 
mate ? Are these varying types, with all their differences. 



ITS ATTTHO-RSHTP A^fD At^THE5TTCITX, 



31 



the natural result of an origin under primarily and persist- 
ently different life conditions ? Or did they find a common 
origin in Noah about 4,300 years ago ?* 

Assuming, for the purpose of the argument, a common 
origin in one pair for the whole human family, there are 
but three suppositions on which the orthodox can account 
for the present physical diversities amongst mankind. 

1. A miracle, or immediate act of Deity changing one 
type into another. 

2. The gradual action of physical conditions, such as 
climate, food, mode of life, &c. 

3. Congenital or accidental varieties.f 

The first point hardly needs remark. No such miracle or 
act of God is alleged to have taken place. The writer ]n 
Genesis who invented a Tower of Babel miracle to account 
for the diversity of language of which he could not help be- 
ing well aware, did not find it necessary to account for the 
diversity of type — a fact of which he knew nothing. Eth- 
nology is the most modern amongst sciences, though her 
lessons are likely to be of the highest importance to human 
welfare. It lies upon any one supporting the first propo- 
sition, at least to vouch its truth with his tongue or pen, ere 
it is needed that a formal refutation of Ethnic-thaumaturgy 
should be placed before the reader. The affirmative of the 
second and third positions has been taken by Dr. James 
Cowles Prichard, in his voluminous works on the Natural 
and Physical History of Man." 

It cannot be denied that races improve and deteriorate 
under varying conditions of food and climate, but it is most 
strongly contended that no such influences will convert one 
race, as the Negro, into another race, as the Caucasian. Of 
the permanence of type under its own climatic conditions — 
that is, in the country to which it is indigenous — we have 
overwhelming proof in the statue of an ancient Egyptian 
scribe, taken from a tomb of the fifth dynasty, 5,000 years 

* It is not necessary to discuss the question whether Adam and 
Eve were the parents of the human races at 6,000 years date ; or any 
other period, because, as the Noachian deluge is alleged to have re- 
duced all mankind to one family, it is only necessary to start from 
the date of tiiat flood. 

t Dr. Nott's Physical History of Man, p. 28. 



GENESIS : 



old, and precisely corresponding to the rellah of the present 
day.* The sand had preserved the colour of the statuette, 
which, from its portrait-like beauty, marks a long era of 
art-progress preceding its production. It ante-dates the 
orthodox era of the flood, carries us back to a time when, 
if the Bible were true, Adam was yet alive, and still we find 
centuries before it kings reigning and ruling in mighty 
Egypt. Can the reader wonder that these facts are held to 
impeach the orthodox faith in the reliability of Genesis ? 

Dr. ott says — It is a commonly received error that the 
influence of a hot climate is gradually exerted on successive 
generations, until one species of mankind is completely 
changed into another ; a dark shade is impressed on the 
first, and transmitted to the second ; another shade is added 
to the third, which is handed down to the fourth ; and so 
on, through successive generations, until the fair German 
is transformed by climate into the black African." T'his 
idea is proven to be false. A sunburnt cheek is never 
handed down to succeeding generations. The exposed parts 
of the body alone are tanned by the sun, and the children 
of the white skinned Europeans in ]S'ew Orleans, Mobil o> 
and the West Indies, are born as fair as their ancestors, 
and would remain so, if carried back to a colder climate* 
The same may be said of other acquired characters (except 
those from want or disease). They die with the individual, 
QOid are no more capable of transmission than a flattened 
bead, mutilated limb, or tattooed skin. The monuments of 
Egypt present us the features of the Mongol, the Caucasian, 
and the Negro, 3,000 B.C. If time were wanted to pro- 
duce this diversity, how many chiliads prior to the Adamic 
era shall we travel in order to find the first pair?"t 

The only question remaining is that of congenital or 
accidental varieties or peculiarities alleged to spring up, and 
be transmitted from father to son so as to form new races. 
On this point, I again adopt the language of Dr. Nott — 
" Let us pause for a moment to illustrate this fanciful idea. 
The negroes of Africa, for example, are admitted not to be 
ofl*sets from some other race, which have been gradually 

♦ M. Pulzsky: Indigenous Races, p. 111. 

* Physical History of Man, p. 28. 



ITS AUTHORSHIP ATTD AtTTHENTICITT. 33 



blackened and changed in moral and physical type T)y the 
action of the climate ; but it is asserted that, ' once in the 
flight of ages past/ some genuine little negro, or rather 
many such, were born of Caucasian, Mongol, or other light 
skinned parents, and then have turned about and changed 
the type of the inhabitants of a whole continent. So in 
America, the countless aborigines found on this Continent, 
which, we have reason to believe, were building mounds be- 
fore the time of Moses, are the offspring of a race changed 
by accidental or congenital varieties. Thus, too, old China, 
India, Australia, Oceanica, &c., all owe their types, physical 
and mental, to congjenital or accidental varieties, and are all 
descended from Adam and Eve. Can human credulity go 
further, or human ingenuity invent any argument more 
absurd ? Tet the whole ground- work of a common origin 
for some nine or ten hundred millions of human beings, 
embracing numerous distinct types, which are lost in anti- 
quity far beyond all records or chronology, sacred or pro- 
fane, is narrowed down to this baseless fabric. 

" In support of this argument, we are told of the porcupine 
family of England which inherited for some generations a 
peculiar condition of the skin, characterised by thickened 
warty excrescences. "We are also told of the transmission 
from father to child of club feet, cross eyes, six fingers, deaf- 
ness, blindness, and many other examples of congenital 
peculiarities. But these examples merely serve to disprove 
the argument they are intended to sustain. Did any one 
ever hear of a club-footed, cross-eyed, or six fingered race, 
although such individuals are exceedingly common ? Are 
they not, on the contrary, always swallowed up and lost ? 
Is it not strange, if there be any truth ir. this argument, 
that no race has ever been formed from those congenital 
varieties which we know to occur frequently, and yet races 
originate from congenital varieties which cannot be proved 
and are not believed by most of our best writers ever to 
have existed? No one ever saw a Negro, Mongol, or 
Indian born from any but his own species. Has any onjs 
ever heard of an Indian child born from white or black 
parents in America during more than two centuries that 
these races have been living there ? Is not this brief state- 



ment sufficient to satisfy any one, that the diversity of races 
now seen on the earth, cannot be accounted for on the ab- 
eumption of congenital or accidental origin ? If a doubt 
remains, would it not be expelled by the recollection of the 
fact that the Negro, Mongol, and White Man existed, with 
their present types, at least 1000 years before the date when 
Abraham is alleged to have journeyed to Egypt as a suppli- 
ant to the mighty Pharaoh." 

The science of geokgy affords to the inquirer still further 
means for testing the Genesaic narrative ot the creation, 
and more than one surpliced defender of the faith has been 
compelled during the last twenty years to admit that the 
teachings of this science and those of the Pentateuch are in 
direct and irreconcilable variance. The Eev. Baden Powell 
says that the whole tenor of geology is in entire con- 
tradiction to the cosmogony " of the Bible ; and he adds, 
that whenever the sacred writers introduce physical 
statements, they may fairly be understood as speaking 
conformably to the existing state of knowledge, and adapt- 
ing themselves to the ideas, belief, and capacities of those 
whom they addressed/'* That is, in effect, a declaration 
on the part of this Church of England clergyman that 
the Bible is not divinely inspired, but is the production of 
fallible and imperfectly educated men. 

M. Priaulx saysf that in reviewing this creation, we are 
struck by its division into days. These days, though seve- 
ral of them are undetermined by any revolution of the 
earth round the sun, were nevertheless meant and under- 
stood to be natural days of twenty-four hours each. Faber 
argues that these days are homogeneous, that the term day 
is often used for an indefinite time, and cannot in this 
chapter mean a natural day, and that therefore each day 
measures a space of at least 6000 years. To this argument 
there are two objections. 1. That the assumption thai 
Grod has been since the creation, and is still, resting is con- 
trary to Christian notions of Deity, and contrary also to 
scripture, and especially contrary to the theological views of 
infant man, whose deities are ever too busy, too personally 

• Unity of Worlds; essay 2, sect. 2. 
f Questiones Mosaicae, 29, 



ITS ATTTHORSHIP AlH) AtTTHENTICITT. 



35 



Rctive ; and ever engaged, if not in creating, in mending 
and rectifying their handiwork. 2. That though *'day" 
may be used for any indefinite time, it is surely never so 
when particularised and defined by adduig the words morn- 
ing" and evening." Hugh Miller in his lecture on tho 
two records, Mosaical and Geological, enlarges on the ex- 
planatory hypotheses of Dr. Chalmers and Dr. Pye Smith, 
both of which represent the creation recorded in Grenesis as 
an event which took place about 6000 years ago, as begun 
and completed in six natural days, but as cut ofl" from a 
previously existing creation by a chaotic period of death, 
and darkness.* 

According to the first chapter of Genesis, the creation of 
the whole universe occupied only six days and nights, and 
this view of the matter is clearly confirmed by the words of 
the Decalogue as given in Exodus xx., 11. Geologists, 
on the contrary, declare that the various early strata of the 
earth have occupied enormous periods of time during their 
formation, and that even in the vegetable and anim.al king- 
doms, the extinction and creation of species have been, and 
are, the result of a slow and gradual change in the organic 
world.t 

It is worse than puerile to contend that the words *^ day" 
and " night" in Genesis are intended to express six indefi- 
nite periods of time, because as the same words are used 
in Exodus xx., 10 and 11, and in reference to the same 
event, as expressing only the seventh part of a week, it is 
clear that it was not the intention of the Hebrew cosmogo- 
nists to express an indefinite period, or indeed anything but 
a natural day. Nor would this explanation, if a correct one, 
relieve the orthodox students from the difficulties raised by 
scientific investigators. The objection is not alone that 
there was no such formation or creation in six days, as 
alleged in the text under notice, but is also, that it did not 
even take place in the order, or at any time, in the manner 
recorded in the Bible. A fashionable contention is for a very 
long period of chaos covered by the two first verses of Genesis, 



* Testimony of the Rocks, pp. 115 to 156. 

t Lyell's I'rinciples of Geology, 8tli edition, p. 179. 



36 



GENESIS : 



and then for a six day or six period work of forming the 
pre-existing material into the universe. But the description 
of the chaos of the first two verses refers to an ^\ earth" 
already existing, with " waters" also. But land and waters 
are not the earliest aspects under which geology discover 
our earth. In a very pleasant book recently published in 
Paris,* the writer in his chapter, entitled " Epoque Primi- 
tive,'^ argues, following Laplace's theory, that the whole of 
our earth, as indeed the whole of our firmament, was at one 
period a diff'used mass of nebulous matter, and he deals 
with this globe as primarily a mass of gaseous incandescence 
gradually cooled down to its present shape and density. 

This theory has been put before English readers at various 
times, and at great length, and especially by one most able 
anonymous writer (the author of the " Vestiges of the 
Natural History of Creation"), who in the first two chap- 
ters of his extraordinary work, explains the nebular hypo- 
thesis most lucidly.t 

Kalisch supports the nebular theory, declares positively 
tbat the primary condition of the earth was a fiery one, and 
suggests that the time required for the cooling down of our 
planet to its present state, would be about 353,000,000 
years. J M. Piguier prefixes to his work a plate showing the 
present strata of our earth, giving first the underlying inter- 
nal and yet unextinguished fire, then the basalt, gneiss, 
and primitive granite, all of which rocks are now almost 
universally acknowledged to be the result of fire action. 

An orthodox explainer of Bible difficulties says — The 
first glimpse of our planet presents us with a revolving mass 
of igneous fluid, wheeling its annual course round the solar 
centre of the system, and gradually cooling down by radia- 
tion into space, whereby a granite crust is formed upon the 
surface."§ 

While it is impossible fiilly to discuss here the nebular 
theory, enough has been advanced to show that even if a 
pre-created chaos were conceded, " earth" and " waters'' 



* La Terre avant la deluge, par Louis Figuier. Hachette, 1863. 
t See also Unity of Worlds, essay 3,, sec 1. 
X Genesis, pages 13 to 19. 
S McCausland on Stones, p. 93 



ITS ATJTHOESHIP ASB ArTHTSsTTICITT. 



37 



were not amongst the primitive conditions of our globe. 
There is, however, really no other pretence for the theory 
which places an arbitrary division between the first and 
second verses of Genesis, or between the second and those 
following, than this, that the clergy cannot fairly combat 
the difficulties raised by the text. Each verse is connected 
by the particle Vau*| (and) and there is not the slightest break 
in the narrative. 

By verses eleven and twelve we are informed that the 
vegetable kingdom was created by one fiat on the third day. 
Yet the best students of geology declare that an universal 
primeval flora cannot be sustained, but that on the contrary 
the development of the vegetable world has been slow, gradual, 
and spread over enormous periods. According to the text, 
herbs and trees were created on the third day, while fishes, 
reptiles, and creeping things were not made until the fifth 
and sixth days. Yet the stone records teach us that there 
existed fishes, reptiles, and creeping things long ages before 
the period of those plants whose existence is now testified by 
the huge coal beds of our country. 

According to Genesis, the vegetable kingdom was created 
only a few days earlier than man. According to geology, 
many millenniums intervened between the first plant and 
the first man. 

An appeal to astronomy is equally decisive againsi the 
Bible story of the creation. According to the first chapter 
of Genesis, our earth was the primarily created planet of 
this universe. According to astronomy our earth is but one, 
and that neither first nor second of a series of planets, pro- 
bably thrown off from, and certainly now revolving round a 
central sun, the whole of this vast solar being itself part of a 
huge astral system, and this again but a small fraction 
of the immeasurable universe.* 

According to the Bible, the firmament is a fixed partition 
stadded with stars, and dividing the waters, so that for heavy 
rain, as in the case of the Noachian deluge, the windows of 
heaven are opened that water may pour on the earth. 



* It is estimated that the solar system to Uranus occupies at least 
8,600 millions of miles. 



GENESIS ! 



According to astronomy all the water clouds ore within a 
few miles of each other, while Venus, one ot the nearest 
stars, is distant 27,000,000 of miles. No such fixed firm:\- 
ment exists at all. Heaven does not mean a fixed partition, 
it is but the word used to express the space in which an infi- 
nity of worlds, millions of miles distant from each other, per- 
form their various revolutions. 

According to the Bible God made the stars after the earth 
had been created, and set them in the heaven to give light 
upon the earth. According to astronomy, vast numbers of 
stars exist whoselightmust have been many thousands of years 
travelling to our earth, notwithstanding the startling rapi- 
dity with which light travels, and some nebulae have been 
discovered whose light must have been travelling more 
than a million of years, and, therefore, so long ago, must 
they have existed to send out those rays we now perceive. 
According to the Bible, there are two great lights in the 
heavens ; the greater — that is, the sun, to rule the day, the 
lesser — that is, the moon, to rule the night. According to 
astronomy, although the sun is by far the largest member 
of our solar system, being no less than 892,000 miles in 
diameter, it is by no means the largest amongst stars, and 
the moon has in reality no claim to be marked as great, 
being actually but little more than l-64th the size of the 
earth. If Genesis be true, the earth existed some days before 
the sun. If astronomy be true, the earth once formed part of 
the sun's enormous volume, and not only never existed with- 
out the sun, as centre of the system of which the earth is a 
member, but could not possibly do so. According to 
Genesis light — that is, day light, was created before the sun. 
According to astronomy, day light is impossible without the 
sun. The terms evening and morning are used in Genesis 
before the sun is created ; and yet these words convey to 
the mind but two impressions ; evening," that portion of 
sun light immediately preceding and succeeding the sun's 
apparent departure or disappearance below our horizon, and 

morning,*' that portion of light that immediately precedes 
and succeeds its apparent rising above. 

In the words of Kalisch, We believe that we have in- 
disputably demoi^strated that, with regard to astronomy 



ITS ATTTHOESHIP AND AUTHENTICITY. S9 

and geology, the Bible records are, in many essential 
points, utterly and irreconcilably at variance with the 
established results of modern researches/* 

A writer in the Westminster Hevierv* says : — ^hat the 
* Creation of the World' took place 4004 years before the 
Christian era, used to be taught in our schoolboy days as a 
fact not less certain than that the Norman Conquest took 
place 1066 years after it. And although every educated 
man of the present generation well knows that if there be 
the least truth in Geology, this statement is a baseless 
fiction, it is nevertheless repeated on the margin of the first 
verse of every * Eeference Bible ' issued under Ecclesiastical 
authority ; and thus it comes to be accepted as a dogma — 
which it is nothing less than a dangerous heresy to question 
—by that vast mass of well-meaning people who are con- 
tent to take their religion upon trust, and to forego the us© 
of their reason while professing to seek the highest of all 
truths. And even of those who are ready to admit that the 
changes of which we have evidence in the succession of 
stratified deposits forming the crust of the Earth, and of 
the Organic remains entombed in them, must have occupied 
hundreds of thousands or even millions of years, the great 
bulk are satisfied with simply antedating their commence- 
ment, and still continue to believe as devoutly as the rest, 
that a general chaotic disturbance, followed by a remodelling 
of the globe which prepared it for the introduction of Man, 
took place at the date assigned. Tet the progress of geolo- 
gical inquiry has clearly disproved the notion of any such 
general remodelling, by showing that all the most recent 
alterations which ha^e taken place on the Earth's surface, 
and in the distribution of Organic life upon it, have been 
effected by agencies purely local and gradual, and in con- 
tinuity with changes which carry us back to a period when 
the countries now inhabited by Man were tenanted by 
animals long since extinct ; while it has also shown that 
many of the races at present existing can be traced so far 
back in geological time, as to have plainly lived through any 
such convulsionary epoch. And thus the well-meanings 



♦ No. 46, April, 1863, pp. 517-19, 



40 



GENESIS : 



attempts which were made a quarter of a century ago to 
reconcile the Mosaic Cosmogony with the verities of science, 
have fallen into discredit; sensible and well-informed men 
have ceased endeavouring to harmonize the successive ' days ' 
of creation (elongated into indefinite periods of time) with 
the Azoic, Palaeozoic, Secondary, Tertiary, and Post- 
Tertiary epochs ; and it has come to be tacitly admitted that 
Geology has as much c!aim as Astronomy or any other 
science, to build up inductions on the facts of Nature, un- 
trammelled by the supposed dicta of Eevelation. 

Tet it is remarkable how chary Geologists have until 
recently been of disturbing the popular notion that the 
creation of Man took place in the year 4004 b.o. It has 
seemed as if they had purchased their right to speculate 
freely on the anterior history of the Earth, by promising to 
leave untouched that which the Theologian claims as his 
proper province, the origin and early history of the Human 
feace. And if some of the more venturous among them 
have now and then drawn attention to the facts which 
seemed to claim for him a remoter antiquity, they have been 
called to order by those ^potent, grave, and reverend' 
seniors, whose credit with the educated public has mainly 
rested upon their obvious unwillingness to run counter on 
this point to the accepted belief ; the facts have been quietly 
ignored, or the inferences voted unsound. 

Indications have not been wanting, however, in the pro- 
gress of other branches of scientific inquiry, that the Human 
Race is much older than the ordinary chronology admits ; 
and the convergence of such indications from several dis- 
Snct paths of research, is in itself no insignificant attesta- 
^on of the validity of the conclusion towards which they 
severally lead. The Ethnologist, who aims at tracing- out 
the relations of the existing families of Mankind on the 
hypothesis of their common origin, finds that making the 
largest allowance which experience justifies for the modify- 
ing influence of external conditions, he is quite unable to 
account for the divergence of the races clearly recognisable 
in the oldest Egyptian paintings, within the limited num- 
ber of centuries intervenins: between the probable period 
of their execution (from 1500 to 1000 B.C.) and the date 



ITS AUTHOKSUIP AND AUTHENTICITY. 



assigned to the Creation ; still less between the same period 
and the date of the i^oachian Deluge, after which (if the 
Mosaic record is to be literally interpreted) the population 
of the world began a second time. The Philologist, who 
studies the filiation, growth, and metamorphoses of Lan- 
guages, and who finds, the higher he mounts into antiquity, 
more and more reason to believe that even their most diver- 
gent forms have had a common original, still feels the neces- 
sity of a far greater lapse of time than the received chrono- 
logy admits, to account for the early development of those 
marvellous linguistic fabrics which are at present only known 
to us in their ruin or decay. The Antiquarian, again, who 
allows due weight to the accumulating evidence that the 
implements and usages of * Pre-historic Man,' in various 
quarters of the globe, are referable to several epochs as dis- 
tinctly successive as those of the Historic period, and each 
of them in all probability a great deal longer, finds it im- 
possible to conceive with any show of reason, that such a 
succession can have occurred within the few centuries to 
which we must limit it if we first make a fair allowance for 
the lapse of time required for the mere peopling of the earth 
by the descendants of a single pair. And the Physical 
Geographer who grapples with the difiaculties presented by 
the existing localization of those races of Plants and Ani- 
mals which are popularly supposed to have been called into 
being contemporaneously with Man, for his express use and 
service, feels himself unable to solve those difficulties with- 
out the hypothesis that very extensive changes in the rela- 
tive distribution of land and waters, such as must have re- 
quired an enormous lapse of time for their accomplishment, 
have taken place since they first difi'used themselves over 
the areas they now occupy."* 

* " Thus it was long since shown by Dr. J. D. Hooker, that the re- 
lations of the Plants of South America, New Zealand, and Tasmania 
cannot be accounted for except on the supposition that these countries 
once formed part of a great Antarctic Continent. And more recently 
Mr. Wallace has shown that the relations of the Animal inhabitants 
of the Indian Archipelago similarly point to the former existence of 
a great Southern Asiatic Continent, the partial submergence of which 
may not improbably have been synchronOTis with the elevation of the 
Himalayan range/'' 



42 



Chap, i., verse 24. — The words translated "and beast of the 
earth/' are in the ordinary Hebrew version IFI'^m (UChlThU) 
yib^ (AKeTz), the correct rendering of which would be 
and his beast, earth." The fact being that the writer of the 
Hebrew has blundered in substituting the final letter of the 
first word 1 (Vau) for the prefix H (He) which ought to be, 
and in the Samaritan version actually is, the commencing 
letter of the second word. The error, though a trivial one, 
serves to show that, notwithstanding Jesus is reported to have 
said — Till heaven and earth pass, one jot or one tittle 
shall in no wise pass," yet the Hebrew text has not been 

E reserved without blemish ; and also that our translators 
ave not hesitated to make up its deficiencies. Dr. Wall 
adduces this and several similar blunders as instances of ex- 
tremely hasty and inaccurate vocalisation of the original 
Hebrew.* 

Chap, ii., verse 7. — " And man became a living soul." 
Tou have in this verse a forcible illustration of the dis- 
honesty of the translators of our authorised version. The 
words rendered in the orthodox version living soul," are 
n^n tiJQS (NePheSh ChlE). In chap, i., v. 21, where 
exactly the same Hebrew words are used with reference to 
the animals produced from the waters, the translators give 
" living creatures " as the equivalent, as they do likewise in 
chap, ii., V. 19, where precisely the same two Hebrew words 
are again translated living creature." The truth is that 
the writer of Genesis never used any phrase denoting 

soul" in the modern and orthodox sense of the word. If 
the translators had deemed " soul " the correct rendering, 
why did they not use it always ? The answer is that it would 
then have given the same " soul " to man and beast — that 
is, to the whole animal kingdom, and this is really the doc- 
trine taught in the Hebrew Bible, that which befalleth the 
eons of men befalleth beasts, as the one dieth so dieth the 
other ; yea, they have all one breath ; so that man hath no pre- 
eminence above a beast." (Ecclesiastes, chap, iii., v. 19. 
See also page 11, and Questiones Mosaicse, p. 64.) The 
word (NePheSh) means to breathe or respire.f Park- 

* Grounds for Eevision, p. 233. 

■f Hebrew Lexicon, p. 460, 7th editioDc 



ITS AriHOESHTP A^"D ArTREVTICITY. 



43 



hurst in his Lexicon says that the word has been supposed 
to signify ?oul. but that he can find no passage where it 
hath undoubteily this meaning. From the instances given 
by Qesenius it is clear that " the soul *' spoken of in the Old 
Testament was not immortal, as it is said to live, to die. to be 
kiDed, ^'c * 

Verse 8. — The Lord planted a garden in Eden.'' Wil- 
ford saySjt Mussulmans as well as Christians have assigned 
various situations to the garden of Eden, and there is hardly 
a country on earth or a region in heaven but has been ran- 
sacked in search of it, whilst some of the fathers have denied 
its existence. In consequence of the great difficulty ex- 
perienced by the orthodox in finding any spot on the globe 
which would harmonise geographically with the Biblical des- 
cription of Eden, it has been asserted by some commenta- 
tors that the description is antediluvian, and that the deluge 
had changed the position of the rivers. But this raises two 
difficulties — first, if the description be antediluvian Moses 
was certainly not its author ; and second, in describing the 
rivers the text uses the present tense as though the author 
or compiler of Genesis had in view some particular district 
familiar to himself, and which he expected to be able suffi- 
ciently to make known to his readers by the special features 
he pointed out. Kalisch gives a list of nearly forty different 
sites selected for Eden by prominent writers.! "Wilford 
fixes it in the neighbourhood of the Indian mountains. 

Stroth says — •'• We are obliged to assume, with Theophi- 
lus and other fathers of the Church, that Paradise fi.uctuated 
like a balloon between heaven and earth, from which each 
of the rivers precipitated itself downwards towards its 
earthly source !''§ 

Verses 9 and 17, — The tree of knowledge of good and 
evil." It can hardly be contended that this tree had a real 
and tangible existence. If it is so contended, then I ask — 
was it the unique specimen of its species, and did it only 



* Gesenius's Lexiion. p. 559. 

t Asiatic Iiesearches. vol. vi.. p. 4SS. 

+ Genesis, p. 100 : and Asiatic Eesearches, vol. vi., p. 4S6. See 
Macdonald'3 Creation and Fall, p. 335. 

§ Jewish xintiquities, by the Eev. D. G. ^yait, preface, p. 25 



44 



GENESIS : 



grow in that fabled Eden for whose site men have so long 
and vainly sought ? Did any such tree now exist producing 
fruit the eating of which would give a knowledge of good 
and evil, it would afford a short and pleasant way of acquir- 
ing knowledge; but such trees only grow in children's 
stories, in Arabian Nights' tales, or in the myths of ignorant 
nations. But supposing the tree to be a literal tree, did 
Adam, from eating its fruit, acquire a knowledge ot good 
and evil ? If yes, then he had previously no such know- 
ledge. Yet he was created by God in his image ; was he in 
his ignorance the image of God ? The word " image " can- 
not be intended as a corporeal likeness, because God is re- 
presented as an invisible spirit without body or parts. Be- 
sides which it has been rightly observed that if Adam was 
ignorant of the nature of evil, he ought not to have been 
condemned for a transgression he did not understand.* 
Priaulx says — " If man was ignorant of good and evil, how 
could God threaten him with punishment ? For, with the 
conception of a punishment is involved the idea of some 
evil: and the very threat of punishment, therefore, when 
rational, presupposes in the being threatened a capacity to 
choose between, and consequently a knowledge of good and 
evil.''t 

It is difficult to refrain from ridiculing the statement that 
there exist real trees bearing knowledge-giving fruit, but 
admitting the statement as serious, it is even more difficult 
to comprehend why an all-wise, all-good God should plant 
a tree of knowledge and then inhibit man from partaking of 
its fruit. 

Verses 19 and 20. — LawrenceJ says that the representation 
of all the animals being brought before Adam to be named, is 
zoologically impossible. But this is consistent, notwithstand- 
ing, with the orthodox doctrine that it is theologically pos- 
sible. He objects that there are animals from the frigid zone, 
and some of those of the torrid zone, which could hardly exist 
except on the soil and under the climatic conditions to which 
they were indigenous. That the food for the sustenance of 

* See Bellamy, new translation, p. 10. 

t Questiones Mosaicae, 75. 

J Lectures on Man, 9th edition, p. 169. 



ITS AUTHOESHIP AND AUTHENTICITT. 



45 



all the animals in the world could not easily have been col- 
lected at one point at one time. The devout readers know 
that a miracle would remove all these difficulties, and 
although no such miracle is recorded, the mere omission of 
it ought not to weigh against the text. It is further ob- 
jected that either God knew beforehand what names Adam 
would give, or he is not omniscient, and that if he did know 
then Genesis is incorrect, as it says he brought them to 
Adam to see what he would call them." 

Verses 21 and 22. — Was the first man made with an ex- 
tra rib ? If yes, did God give him the rib in order that he 
might afterwards take it away ? Or was the first man left 
with a rib deficient after the making of woman ? Could not 
the Creator have made woman of the same materials as 
those of which the man had been previously formed ? Bel- 
lamy denies the whole story of the rib, declaring it to be a 
mistranslation. His version does not in this instance seem 
to me reliable. 

Chapter iii. — This chapter is really one of primary im- 
portance to the believer in Christ, as on the truth or falsity 
of its narrative rests the whole Christian scheme. In the 
history of the fall is contained the foundation stone for the 
much vaunted structure of redemption. Briefly summarised, 
the contents of the chapter are as follows: — Man and 
woman are in Eden's garden where grows the tree bearing 
the mystic fruit, which before woman's creation man had 
been positively forbidden to take. A most wonderful and 
unique serpent, subtle and suasive in speech, is created by 
Deity and permitted within the limits of the primal paradise. 
It is idle to object that no description of serpent has ever been 
discovered possessed of organs for speech, or that con- 
demned now to crawl on its belly for punishment, it must 
have previously progressed in some utterly incomprehen- 
sible manner on its head, its tail, or its back. The 
serpent talks to the woman ;* we appear in Genesis to have 

♦ Priaulx asks — "But how did the serpent speak? Did he utter a 
serpent's mind with a serpent's hiss, or did he talk in good set terms? 
Ii" we can suppose that the serpent was so like a seraph that Eve mis- 
took him for a good angel, we can also easily suppose that he spoke 
ret J Daseable Hebrew." 



46 



GENESIS : 



only a fragment of the conversation ; the remark of the 

serpent in verse 2 is apparently too abrupt for the com- 
mencement of an important dialogue by a subtle diplo- 
matist. In fact, in the Hebrew, the opening words are 
even more abrupt than they appear in the authorised 
version, which has <^Tea hath God said." Bellamy trans- 
lates it — "But how hath God said?" Kalisch— " Hath 
indeed God said Such a form of speech obliges us to 
suppose some previous conversation relating to the matter 
and not reported in the text. However this may be, we 
are confined to the words of the Bible wherein the astute 
serpent declares to the woman that the threatened punish- 
ment of death need not be feared. The woman examines 
the God-created tree, she sees that God has made it "good 
for food " although not permitted to be eaten, " pleasant 
to the eyes " although a tree to be shunned and avoided 
because of its baneful influence on all human kind, a tree 
to be desired to make one wise." How the woman could 
see this, is one of the mysteries of our holy and act-of- 
parliament-protected religion. The allurements of the tree, 
and the persuasion of the serpent are altogether too 
powerful. The woman gathers the fruit and eats ; she gives 
to her husband also, who shares the repast. In chap. ii. v. 
17 it says, in the day thou shalt eat thereof thou shalt 
surely die." They did not die, but on the contrary were 
more alive than before hearing " the voice of the Lord 
God walking in the garden in the cool of the day " in the 
cool of the day, when the evening breeze arises, Jehova- 
Elohim walks forth to take his pleasure," the man and 
woman hide themselves from the Omnipresent amongst the 
trees. God the all-wise called to Adam saying, " Where 
art thou?"* Adam's answer is partially incorrect. He 
excuses himself for hiding on the ground of his nakedness, 
which must have been in some degree remedied by the fig 
leaf aprons. In answer to the accusing question, Adam, 



♦ Can God be conceived as speaking? If yes, he must be conceivei 
as possessed of the organs, on the using which articulate speech is 
possibie. Yet to tliink of a Deity with mouth, tpngue, larynx, 
ncTtrlheless, having neither body nor parts I 



ITS AUTHOESHIP AOT AUTHE15TICITT. 



47 



with true Biblical manliness, shifts the responsibility to the 
woman, and, by implication, to God himself. His answer 
and defence are, The woman whom thou gavest to be with 
me, she gave me of the tree and I did eat." The woman in 
her turn fairly says that she was beguiled and did eat. G-od 
then curses the beguiling serpent which he himself had 
created so fitted to beguile and so intended to beguile. God 
then decrees subjection to the woman and sorrow in the 
bringing forth of her offspring, finishing with cursing Adam 
by cursing the ground. In the orthodox statement of the 
fall there is an evident contradiction between the hypothesis 
and the fact, for Adam is represented as originally upright 
and obedient to God, and at the same time as disobedient. 
The alleged perfection of moral nature given by God to man 
ought, if true, to have been a guarantee against man's fall. 
His imperfection and weakness are well shown by his fall 
without any show of resistance on the very first temptation. 
The Christian doctrine is that by the one man Adam's fall, 
sin, sufiering, and death entered into the world. (See 
Eomans v., 12 and 17; 1 Corinthians xv., 21 and 22.) 

I cannot do better in order to illustrate this doctrine 
than quote from a pamphlet by the well known author of 
the treatise on The ]Srecessary Existence of Deity."* He 
regards Hugh Miller as proving — 1. That animal life existed 
on this earth untold ages before man appeared, and, ever 
since animal life began, there existed carnivora which could 
not live but by the death of their neighbours, 2. Those 
destroying animals were not only prepared to kill and de- 
vour each other, but were besides furnished with organs for 
the express purpose of torturing each other. t 3. That 
those destructive and torturing animals— existing as they 

* The Theology of Geologists, by W. Gillespie. 

t Hugh Miller instances the sting of the Pleuracanthus Lffivissimus 
of the coal measures, a plate of which, half natural size, he gives on p. 
72 of the Testimr.ny of the Rocks." " It was sharp and polished as a 
stiletto, but from its rounded form and dense structure, of great 
strength ; and along two of its sides, from the taper point to -witliin a 
few inches of the base, there was a thickly set row of barls, hooked 
downwards, like the thorns that bristle on the young shoots of the 
wild rose, and which must have rendered it a weapon not merely of 
destruction but of torture." 



48 



GENESIS : 



did before man, and, therefore, standing in no dependent 
relations to man's sin — came directly, of course, from the 
hands of the Creator, who thus made those destructive and 
torturing animals for his mere good pleasure. 4. That 
this creator is the God of the Old Testament. 5. The fact 
of those camivora, existing anterior to the introduction of 
man upon our planet, is entirely at variance with the sen- 
timents of those who hold (what the Bible categorically 
states) that there is such a connection between suffering 
and sin, that there could have been no suffering (physical 
evil) had there been no sin (moral evil) in the world. 
6. The matter of fact always determining the question of 
right, whatever the Creator, whom this sort of geologist dis- 
covers, does, is right, simply because he does it. The crea- 
tion of all manner of physical suffering among the lower 
animals, including, of course, exquisite torture, is right, 
simply because the suffering had existence [at God's fiat.] 

Chap, iii., verse 7. — ^'They sewed fig leaves together and 
made themselves aprons." Bellamy says that at this period 
there w^ere no implements to enable them to perform the 
operation of sewing ; and admitting that there had been 
such things as needles, if the fig leaves were the same then 
as now, they were not of a nature and texture capable of 
holding together by such a process. 

Man being cursed is expelled from the garden of Eden 
lest, as the Lord God says, ^' man having become as one 
of us," " he should take also of the tree of life and eat 
and live for ever and then the Lord placed at the east 
of the garden of Eden cherubims and a flaming sword 
which turned every way." According to this, unless 
Adam got at the tree of life in some unrecorded fashion, 
he will not live for ever, and the doctrme of eternal 
torment will not apply to him, the chief sinner. Does 
the text mean that if Adam had taken of the tree of 
life before his expulsion, or had taken it by regaining ad- 
mittance to Eden after he had been driven forth, then that 
he would have lived for ever despite the decree of the Omni- 
potent ? If yes, then the tree has greater influence than 
the Almighty, and if not, then the text is a confused iumbie 
of contradictious. 



ITS AUTHOESHIP ATTD ATJTHEKTTCTTT. 



The first chapters of Genesis were classed, according to a 
Jewist) rule, with the Song of Solomon, and the beginning 
and end of Ezekiel, the reading of which was forbidden to 
all Jews who had not attained to a certain age (according 
to some twenty-five, according to others thirty years.)* In 
Psalm xviii., v. 11, we are told that God rode upon a 
cherub, and did fiy." Michaelis compares the cherubs with 
the equi tonantes, thunderins: horses, of the Greeks. Eichorn 
makes them as the griffins of the Persians, guardians of the 
gold-producing mountains.! Por a description of these 
cherubim, I must refer the reader to Exodus chap. xxv. 
18 to 22 ; xxxvii. 7 to 9 ; 1 Kings vi. 23 to 28 ; 2 Chro- 
nicles iii. 10 to 13; Ezekiel i. 5 to 11; x., 9, 14, 21. 22. 
The Rev. Mr. Parkhurst, in defiance of the Decalogue, 
has obliged us with an engraving of two cherubs, who 
are represented standing on the top of the ark, in a 
vastly uncomfortable fashion, each on the only leg it 
possesses. Certainly these would be strange guardians 
for the tree of life. But why only place them on the East 
of Eden? Are the north, south, and west sides unguarded? 
Many fathers of the Church and Eabbis of the Synagogue 
have been of opinion that the fall never really occurred as 
recorded in the Bible. J Origen says — What rational man 
will believe that God, like a husbandman, planted a garden, 
and in it a real tree of lite to be tasted ? or that the know- 
ledge of good and evil was to be obtained by eating the 
fruit of another tree? And as to God's walking in the 
garden, and Adam's hiding himself from him amongst the 
trees, no man can doubt but that these things are to be 
understood figuratively, and not literally.'' St. Austin, 
of the three first chapters of Genesis, says, " no Christian 
will say they are not to be understood figuratively." Philo 
says, they are figurative descriptions, leading us to allego- 
rical and recondite senses, to which, if any one rationally 
attends, he will see that the serpent is used for the emblem 



* Carpsovii's Veteris Testamenti, quoted by Macdonald, p. 11. 

t Gesenius's Lexicon, Bagster's edition, p. 415 ; but see Eichorn's 
edition of Simonis Lexicon, p. 826, vol. i. ; and Wait's Jewish Anti- 
quities, p. 145. 

J Bellamy's new translation, v i-s 



50 



GENESIS : 



af sensual pleasure." Eabbi Maimonides says " tbat these 
things were not so literally understood." He taught also 
that " every part of Scripture admitted of various and even 
contrary interpretations," and that ^* if a passage in its lite- 
ral sense were found repugnant to reason, although clearly 
expressed, it ought to be translated figuratively."* 

Josephust says " that at the time the serpent talked to Eve 
all living creatures had one language." That " when God 
came into the garden, Adam, who was wont before to come 
and converse with him, being conscious of his wicked beha- 
viour, went out of the way ; this surprised God, and he 
inquired the cause." That God deprived the serpent of 
speech out of indignation at his malicious disposition towards 
Adam," and when he had deprived him (the serpent) of the 
use of his feet, he made him go rolling all along, and dragging 
himself upon the ground. 

Chap, iv., V. 5. — Why did God accept the ofiering oi 
Abel ? Why reject that of Cain ? Cain brought as offer- 
ing the fruits of the field; Abel slaughtered the first- 
lings of his flock, and offered to the Creator a sacrifice 
stained with blood. Who was it that taught these two 
brothers that God needed sacrifice? Who explained to 
them what the sacrifice should be ? The laws as to 
sacrifice do not appear to have been given before Moses. 
Why should the God who said I delight not in the blood 
of bullocks, or of lambs, or of hegoats," why should he 
have respect unto the offering of Abel, and not unto that of 
Cain ? How was the preference manifested ? How did 
Cain know that God preferred Abel ? On all these points 
the text is silent, leaving the wider range for the faith of 
the true believer. Should not God look with greater bene- 
volence upon a vegetable offering produced with sweat and 
toil from the stubborn earth which had just been laden with 
the curse of sterility, than upon the mangled carcases of the 
firstlings of the flock ? Or is this narrative to be taken as 
emblematical of Judaism, with its fierce and brutal propa- 



♦ Spinoza's Tractatus Theologico Politicus, cap. 7, sec. 75, quotit g 
More Nebuchim, cap. 25, part ii. 

t Antiquities of the Jews, Book i., cap. i., sec. 4. 



ITS AUTHOKSHIP A?^D ArTHENTICITT. 



51 



ganda ; with its bloody pilgrimage from Egypt to Canaan, 
and of Christianity, with its God-sacrificed God, nailed on 
a cross, spear-pierced in his side, the immortal bleeding to 
death, that we mayno longer die? In Leyiticus, chap. ii.» v. 14, 
the yery kind of sacrifice is commanded which was rejected 
w^hen brought by Cain. 

Verse 8.— '* And Cain talked with Abel his brother." In 
reference to this yerse. and as illustrating the spirit in \^'hich 
the translators dealt with what they would have us believe 
to be Grod's most holy word, it is not inappropriate to quote 
the words of the Eev. Dr. Wall.* He is speaking of various 
faults in the text, and having dealt with two classes, he 
proceeds — But those of the class next to be noticed, are of 
a nature decidedly objectionable, as having arisen from an 
efibrt to conceal blemishes in the existing condition of the 
Hebrew text — an efiort which led the translators^ not only 
to a partial suppression of the truth in the cases referred to, 
but still further, to at times its positive misrepresentation/ 
. . An example of the kind of fault I am now' com- 
plaining of, occults in Genesis, chap, iv., v. 8., And Cain 
talked with Abel his brother ; and it came to pass when they 
were in the field, that Cain rose up against his brother Abel 
and slew him.'' Here no chasm appears ; yet the context 
of the original passage clearly shows one, as may be per- 
ceived at once from its first clause, (UIAM^E) 
(KalX) (AL) (-EB^L) ^^-p^ (AChlJJ) signifying 

literally, '-'and Cain said to Abel his brother" — a statement 
which obviously implies that some words used by Cain on this 
occasion originally followed in the text, which are no longer 
to be found in it. Accordingly a vacant space is left imme- 
diately after this clause in several Hebrew MSS., more than 
twenty ot which have been specified by Kennicott, and the 
Ma-orets, to whose authority our translators elsewhere pay 
the greatest deference, have not only inserted here in their 
edition of the text a mark of something being omitted, but 
have also added the observation that there are twenty-eight 
such blanks in the middle of verses in the sacred record. 



* Grounds for Eevision of the Authoii^ed Version, p. 102, but see 
contra Kalisch, 14.0 Genesis. Bellamy, New Tianblaiion, p. 27. 



52 



genesis: 



The first quarrel appears to originate in a reli- 
gious difference. On questions of religion how many 
quarrels have since racked the world ! At the first altar 
erected to a God, to whom the attributes of infinite love and 
mercy are attributed, the two sole worshippers are taught to 
hate each other. How many steeples have since surmounted 
roofs covering crowds of worshippers, whose fanatical zeal 
prompts them to fiendish cruelties against their fellow men ! 
The eleventh and twelfth centuries of our era, with the glorious 
Christian crusades for their chief feature, present to us a his- 
torical tableau on which none but the most ignorantly pious 
can look without a shudder. 

The question, Where is Abel thy brother was one 
which God the All- wise did not need to put, and of 
the answer to which he was well aware before putting it. 
The declaration of Cain in v, 13, *^ every one that findeth 
me shall slay me," is a most extraordinary one, especially 
when it is considered that if the Bible narrative of Adam 
and Eve's creation be accepted, then Cain's father and 
mother were the only living human beings on the face of 
the earth. It may fairly be answered that Cain may not 
know how far the earth was peopled, and this, notwithstand- 
ing that his father had tasted of the fruit of the tree of 
knowledge, but even admitting this, it does not account for 
God sharing Cain's error, and setting a mark on Cain, lest 
any one finding him should kill him. Bellamy* declares, 
quoting Dodd, that the population of the world at the death 
of Abel, according to a fair calculation, must have amounted 
to many millions. This is, however, a monstrous assertion, 
for the text. Genesis, chap, iv., v. 25, distinctly states that 
Seth was not born until after the killing of Abel by Cain. 

Verse 13. — In the Douay version Cain is made to say 
that his sin is too great for pardon. In our version he com- 
plains that the punishment is greater than he can bear, 
Bellamy translates it, Great is my iniquity to be forgiven.' 

Verse 16. — " Cain went out of the preseuee of the Lord." 
Despite Psalm cxxxxi., vv. 7 to 12, the writers of the early 
Hebrew books always speak of the God of the J ews as if he 



♦ New Translation, p. 29. 



ITS AUTHOBSHIP AXD AUTHENTICITY. 



58 



were a localised and limited Deity. Cain goes east, Adam left 
Eden for the same direction. Is it in the east that the Lord 
is not ? Cain dwelt in the land of Nod. As the situation 
of Eden is yet unsettled, and as the only clue we have to 
Nod is that it was on the east of Eden, it is useless to follow 
the various writers who have placed it at different parts of 
the world, through their lengthy dissertations, ending in 
nothing. Bellamy remarks that there is no land of Nod at 
all, but that the text means that Cain wandered about. 

Verse 17. — Cain's taking a wife is here spoken of as 
though his marrying was the ordinary and natural event, 
but as according to the Bible narrative, there was yet no 
woman but his mother Eve, the statement is at least a 
startling one, as is the declaration that he built a city when 
there would only be himself, his wife, and son, to inhabit it. 

The Eoman Catholic Church teaches in a foot-note to the 
Douay Bible, that Cain's wife was his own sister, and a 
daughter of Adam, and that God permitted such ^marriages 
in the beginning of the world as otherwise mankind could 
not have been propagated. It is fair to inquire how Cain 
could have ever married his sister before she was bom, 
Adam is not said to have had any daughter until after the 
birth of Seth. 

Verse 26. — Called his name Enos, then began men to 
call upon the name of the Lord." Bellamy translates this 

called his nam^ Enos, who began to profane in the name 
of Jehovah," and he says that Adam's grandson was one of 
the earliest idolatirs, and quotes Maomonides as supporting 
this opinion.* Clericus and Michaelis render it " then they 
began to call themselves by the name of God." Onkelos, 
and others, they began to desecrate the divine name by 
calling the idols Gods." The Douay gives it, this man 
began to call upon the name of the Lord.*' In an edition 
of the Breeches Bible printed in 1589, the translators use 
the language of our version, and say in a marginal note In 
these days Gdd began to move the breasts of the godly to 
restore religion which a long time by the wicked had been 
suppressed." When learned translators and commentators 
80 differ, is it safer to believe that Enos was an idolater, or 



* New Translation, p, 32. Kalisch, Genesis, 154. 



54 



GET^ESIS : 



that he was a pious man ? Perhaps, after all, the distinction 
is not very great between worshipping the God of the Bible 
and worshipping an idol. 

Chap, v., V. 2. — Called their name Adam." Kalisch 
gives this, called their name man." This verse seems to 
use " Adam" as the name for all the first created men and 
women, rather than as the proper name of one man. 
Bellamy says that Adam appears to be a general term for 
the human race. The supporters of the document theory 
alluded to on page 12, urge that the fifth chapter is a con- 
tinuation from chap, ii., verse 3. It is at least remark- 
able, that neither Cain, nor Abel, the descendants of 
Cain are referred to in this chapter. The wise translators 
ot the Breeclies Bible say that by giving male and female the 
one name *'Adam," God noteth the inseparable conjunction 
of man and wife ! 

Verse 3. — And Adam lived 130 years," and begat 
Seth. According to Josephus, Adam was 230 years of age 
before Seth was born. The extraordinary ages assigned in 
this chapter, have been already alluded to in page 22. Luke 
Burket presents the following table, founded on this chapter, 
of the patriarchal ages from Adam to Noah, according to 
the Samaritan, Hebrew, and Septuagint version : — 

Before Generation. 





Hebrew 


Samaritan 


Josephus & 
Septnagiiit 


Adam 


130 


1^0 




Seth 


155 


105 


205 


Enos 


90 


90 


190 


Canaan 


70 


70 


170 


Mahal eel 


65 


65 


165 


Jared 


162 


62 


162 


Enoch 


65 


65 


165 


Methuselah 


187 


67 


167 or 187 


Lamech 


182 


53 


188 or 182 


Noah 


500 


500 


500 


Added century 


100 


100 1 


100 


Deluge 


1656 


1307 


2242 



Ethnological Journal^ p, 1.6 



ITS ATJTHOESHIP ATO AUTHENTICITY. 



55 



Josephus very nawelg remarks, Let no one inquire into 
the deaths of these men, but let him have regard to their 
births only.'' Colenso says,* If according to the Septuagint, 
Methusaleh was 167 years of age at the birth of his son, 
he must have been 355 years at the birth of Noah, con- 
sequently when the flood took place in the 600th year of 
Noah's life, he would have been only 995 years old, so that 
he would have overlived the flood fourteen years. See 
page 23." 

Mr, Burke, after giving the above quoted table, adds, 
" The writer has here within a very brief compass an amount 
of disagreement probably without parallel.'' Whence can it 
arise? Not certainly from any peculiar difficulty or 
obscurity in the original texts. Neither in the originals, nor 
in the generality of copies, are the numbers anywhere ex- 
pressed by letters or characters, but written out fully in 
words. Yet in the case before us, we have, to say nothing 
of minor variations, a difference of 349 years between the 
Hebrew and Samaritan dates of the deluge, and a difference 
of no less than 935 years between the Septuagint and the 
Samaritan. And these discrepancies not produced by a 
single passage, but resulting from the gradual accumulation 
of minor differences. As to various versions the reader is 
referred for information to Home's Introduction, p. 85. 

Verse 24. — And Enoch walked with God and he was 
noty The Breeches Bible has it, ''and he was no more seen," 
and adds in the marginal note, that to inquire where he 
became is mere curiosity.'* It is curious that Enoch's 365 
years correspond exactly to the days of the solar year. 
Some seek to identify Enoch with Anakos, the Phrygig;B 
sage, who was translated to heaven. 

It is worthy noticef that the names run in — 

CHAP. IV., V. 18. CHAP, v., V. 15. 

Enoch, Mahalaleel, 

Irad, ' Jared, 

Mehujael, Enoch, 

Methusael, Methusaleh, 

Lamech. Lamech. 



* Pentateuch, Part 4, p. 166. f De Wette, Books of Moses, sec. 



66 



GE]Nii:si8: 



See on this point Priaulx " Questiones Mosiacse/' p. 159,and 
Kalisch, Genesis, p. 162. 8ome urge that one list is a cor- 
rupted version of the other, three of the names being re- 
versed. ' The generations of Adam as well as the two 
accounts of the creation summarised in page 21, are urged, 
as strong evidence against the Mosaic authority of Genesis, 
ana consequently of the whole Pentateuch, of which, accord- 
ing to the orthodox notion, Moses was the actual writer. 
It may not be improper, therefore, in this place to deal with 
the general question of the Mosaic authorship of Genesis, 
and in fact with the authorship of the Pentateuch, leaving 
the special illustrations arising on particular texts, to bo 
dealt with as those texts are reached in their order. The 
question of disputed authorship is not confined to the first 
book, or first five books, but extends to the whole Bible. 
Spinoza says,* Of the authors, or if you please, writers, of 
many of the books, we either know almost nothing, or we en- 
tertain grave doubts as to the correctness with which the se- 
veral books are ascribed to the parties whose names they bear. 
Then we neither know upon what occasion, nor at what time 
those books were indiled, the writers of which are uiiknown 
to us. Further, we know nothing of the hands into which 
the books fell; nor of the codicils which have furnished 
such a variety of reading, nor whether perchance there were 
not many other variations in other copies." Peyrere fol- 
lowed Spinoza, and said, " God suffered the autographs to 
perish, and only very imperfect copies to come down to us."f 
In the apocryphal book of Esdras, it is distinctly stated that 
in consequence of the "law being burnt,"J Esdras took five 
rapid writers, and shut himself up forty days, so that 
they might write all that had been done in the world 
since the beginning," and it is alleged that these having 
understanding given them by the highest," wrote in 
forty days 204 books of things " which they knew not.'' 
Eusebius, after speaking of the wonderful unanimity of the 
translators of the Septuagint, who were alleged to have been 
shut up in seveniy-two separate cells and without inter- 

* Tractatus Theologico-Politicus, p. 158, Latin edition, chap, vii., 
sec. 58. 

t De Wette, vol. i., div. i., sec 84. 
t Esdras, c. xiv., v. 31 



ITS AUTHORSHIP AND AUTHENTICITY. 



57 



course to each other, to have made the whole translation in 
just the same words and letters, quoted from Irenseus — 

Neither was it anything extraordinary that God should 
have done this, who, indeed, in the captivity under Nebu- 
chadnezzar when their scripture had been destroyed, and the 
Jews returned to their country after seventy years, in the 
time of Artaxerxes, King of the Persians, he inspired 
JEsdras, the priest of the tribe of Levi, to compose anew all 
the discourses of the ancient prophets, and to restore to the 
people the laws given them by 3Ioses,'^* 

Bishop Colenso, after referring to a number of texts, 
which will be dealt with hereafter, says — It is quite pos- 
sible, and, indeed, so far as our present inquiries have gone, 
highly probable that Moses may be an historical character 
— that IS to say, it is probable that legendary stories, con- 
nected with his name, of some remarkable movement in 
former days, may have existed among the Hebrew tribes, 
and these legends may have formed the foundation of the 
narrative. But this is merely conjectural. The result of 
our inquiries, as far as we have proceeded, is that such a 
narrative as that which is contained in the Pentateuch could 
not have been written in the age of Moses or for some time 
afterwards." Sharpe says of Grenesist — " We have no 
account of when this first of the Hebrew books was written, 
or by whom. It has been called one of the Books of Moses, 
and some small part of it may have been written by that 
great lawgiver and leader of the Israelites. But it is the 
work of various authors and of various ages." Michel 
Nicolas saySjJ quoting as his authorities Esdras, Irenaeus, 
Jerome, and Augustine, that there was a tradition gene- 
rally received amongst the Israelites, that Esdras had been 
the restorer of the Mosaic writing, which had suffered great 
damage at the destruction of the J ewish kingdom, and which 
writings, according to some, had even been totally des- 
troyed." " St. Jerome held it indifferent to regard the 
Pentateuch as the work of Moses, or as retouched and put 

♦ Ecclesiastical History, book v., cap. viii., Orase's translation, 
p. 171. 

t Historic Notes on the Old and New Testament, Moxon, 1854, 
p. 6. 

X Etudes critiques sur la Bible — Ancien Testament, p. 2, 



58 



GEI^ESIS : 



lii order bj Ezra." Nicolas adds that although the Protes-* 
tants have more firmly insisted on Moses as the author of 
tbe five books than have their Catholic brethren, yet it is 
amongst the Protestants that the first doubts were raised 
amongst the Christian public as to the authorship. In the 
earliest times of the reformers, Carlstadt declared that it was 
possible to sustain that Moses was not the author of the 
Pentateuch. In 1753 Dr. Astruc first urged the document 
theory referred to on page 12 ; he believed himself able to 
distinguish twelve different documents, of which he called 
the two principal the Elohistic and Jehovistic, from the re- 
currence of one of those names in the one and not in the 
other. Notwithstanding this, Astruc considered Moses the 
editor of Q-enesis, but argued that he had united in one 
volume a number of totally different and pre-existing docu- 
ments. J. S. Vater elaborated Astruc's theory, and subjected 
the text to a much more careful and critical examination, 
the result of which was that he confirmed Astruc's opinion 
that several pre-existing and fragmentary documents were 
used in the composition of the Pentateuch, but he denied 
that Moses was the collector and editor or author of the five 
books, although he conceded that many portions might have 
been written by Moses. His opinion was, in fact, that the 
Pentateuch was made up of various documents imperfectly 
and sometimes improperly joined together. Dr. Colenso,* 
following the Grerman school, has elaborated the document 
theory more fully than any other English writer, and con- 
cludes that the early chapters of G-enesis must have had dif- 
ferent authors. The Eev. Dr. Giles argues that the inter- 
nal evidence furnished by the Pentateuch, shows that Moses 
is not its author, and that external evidence obtained from 
various sources leads to the same conclusion. f 

Kurtz,t writing to prove that the whole Pentateuch as at 
present existing is from the hand of Moses, at last admits 
that the results of his examination have convinced him that 
several authors have taken part in the compostion of the 
Pentateuch. Ewald, who commenced by asserting one 
author for Genesis, now admits that more than one hand 

• Pentateuch, part iv., cap. iii, 
t Hebrew Records, p. 118. 
J Colenso, part iv., p. 15, 



ITS AFT HO^ SHIP A^^) ATJTHE^TTCITT. 



59 



may be traced m the book, Delitzch, while contending for 
Moses, admits other authors and the employment of pre-ex- 
isting documents. Spinoza distinctly declares that the ori- 
ginal writings of Moses [if they ever existed] are no longer 
extant, and that the present books ot the Old Testament 
are a selection from a greater number finally put together, 
and approved by a Council of Pharisees, so that it depended 
on the votes of certain Eabbis whether or no a particular 
Hebrew Book was or was not God^s revelation to his people. 
It is quite certain that if Moses wrote the Pentateuch he 
did not write it in the square-letter Hebrew, which is com- 
paratively a modern language, and which did not exist in 
his time. It is not contended that any other language was 
used by Moses^ and there is no pretence for carrying modern 
Hebrew, or any proof in favour of carrying ancient Hebrew 
as a language with written characters to such a period as 
that assigned to Moses. It is hardly possible that any work 
so voluminous as the Pentateuch could have been graven on 
stone in hieroglyph and carried about on the Levite's shoul- 
ders in the ark, yet this is the only depository assigned to 
the Mosaic books. 

De Wette says— Without doubt it (the ancient Hebrew) 
originated in the land (of Canaan), or was still further de- 
veloped therein after the Hebrew and other Canaanitish 
people had immigrated thither from the mother country — 
and he regards Hebrew, Arabic, and Aramean as branches 
from a common stem. In what language, then, is Moses to 
be supposed to have wTitten ? Some of the Talmudists 
taught that the ancient Hebrew language became entirely 
extinct during the captivity. Genesis itself does not speak 
of writing amongst the patriarchs ; on the contrary, remark- 
able events were chronicled by the help of heaps of stones, 
trees, altars, &c., which were named after the events. The 
first allegation of writing is on the tables of stone, but surely 
this, if written, was not in Hebrew characters. The Hebrews 
had been slaves to the Egyptians, and might have gathered 
from them some of the hieroglyph lore of that age, but 
surely nothing more can be claimed for the ignorant slaves 
than was in use amongst their educated masters. De Wette 



♦ De Wette on tiie Old Testament, pait 2, sees* 30 and 35, 



60 



GENESIS ! 



says* — " Tbe opinion that Moses composed these books 19 
not only opposed by all the signs of a later date, which oc- 
cur in the book itself, but also by the entire analogy of the 
history of Hebrew literature and language." 

Chap. vi. — The sons of God seeing the daughters of 
men that they were fair, took to themselves wives." Amongst 
all peoples, or nearly all, the mythologies delight in the 
love of gods and women, and men and goddesses. Vol- 
taire says — *^ No nation has ever existed, unless perhaps we 
may except China, in which some God is not described as 
having had offspring upon women. These corporeal Gods 
frequently descended to visit their dominions upon earth ; 
they saw the daughters of men, and attached themselves to 
those who were most interesting and beautiful ; the issue of 
this connexion between Gods and mortals must, of course, 
have been superior to other men, thus giants were pro- 
duced." The ^incarnation of Jesus, in consequence of the visit 
of the Angel Gabriel to the Virgin Mary, is but another 
phase of the same myth. The Greek and Hindoo mytholo- 
gies furnish similar examples. 

Verse 3. — My spirit shall not always strive with man 
for that he also is flesh." Bellamy says that this transla- 
tion makes it appear tBat God is flesh, and he renders it — 

My spirit shall not strive with man for ever, because that 
he moreover is flesh." The Douay puts it— My spirit 
shall not remain in man for ever, because he is flesh,'* 
Kalisch translates it — " My spirit shall not always preside 
in man while he is also flesh." The Breeches Bible gives 
— ^^My spirit shall not always strive with man, because he 
is but flesh." Which of these is the correct translation ? 
That the spirit of God, the all-powerful, should strive with 
finite man for any period seems absurd. 

Verse 4. — The giants " of this verse are translated by 
Bellamy into "Apostates." The word is □'1^33 (NcPheLIM) 
from Nephel, " to fall," and might be translated " fallen 
ones."t Bellamy says — The Septuagint translate the 
word by gigantes, which means earthborn, but the trans- 
lators, without attending to the original word, have trans- 

♦ Books of Moses, sec. 163. 

t Gesenius' Hebrew Lexicon, 537; Parkhurst's do.| 458; iSiiaoais, 
1036; Bellamy, p. 36. 



ITS AUTHOESHIP AND AUTHETsTICITT. CI 

lated it by " giants." The translators and revisors havo 
followed the Greek and the Vulgate, which accounts for the 
errors in all the modem translations. 

Verse 6. — And it repented the Lord that he had made 
man on the earth, and it grieved him at his heart." The 
Douaj Bible puts in a foot note — God, who is unchange- 
able, is not capable of repentance, grief, or any other pas- 
sion. But these expressions are used to declare the enor- 
mity of the sins of men, which was so provoking as to deter- 
mine the Creator to destroy these his creatures whom be- 
fore he had so much favoured. In Numbers, c. xxiA., v. 19, 
it says — God is not a man, that he should lie ; neither the 
son of man, that he should repent : hath he said, and shall 
he not do it ? or hath he spoken, and shall he not make it 
good?" The epistle of James, c. i., v. 17, speaks of the 
" Father of lights, with whom is no variableness, neither 
shadow of turning.'' In Malachi, c. iii., v. 6, we find— !For 
I am the Lord, I change not.'' Bellamy translates the 
verse 6 above quoted — And Jehovah was satisfied that he 
had made the man on the earth, notwithstanding he idolised 
himself at his heart," and he urges at considerable length 
that the words " repented " and grieved " ought not to be 
in the text.* It is useless to do more in this place than 
regret that there should be so much room for difference as 
to the meaning of Hebrew words, when our salvation is said 
to depend on the rightly understanding their signification. 
Taking the text as it stands in our version, it is hard 
to understand how God, the immutable, could be affected 
to grief by an event. It is the knowledge of an event which 
causes grief ; but if God be omniscient, he always knew of 
man's wickedness, and was therefore always grieved by it, and 
if the foreknowledge of man's wickedness caused God to 
repent that he had made man, then, as God's knowledge is 
unvarying, it must have caused God to repent that he was 
to create man eternities of ages before he actually created 
him. 

It cannot be forgotten that if God made man, he also 
created all his surroundings, and must, if all- wise, have 
foreknown the effect these would produce on man's conduct. 



• New Translation, p. 37 



62 



GENESIS : 



Either God had not the power to arrange things differently^, 
in which case he is not omnipotent ; or he was careless as 
to man's well-being, in which case he is not all- good. 

Verse 7. — -That God should repent that he had made the 
beasts, birds, and creeping things, and should determine to 
destroy them, because man had acted wickedly, is a most 
monstrous supposition, if God is to be considered as just 
and good. The threat of destruction does not, in form of 
words, include the fish of the sea, nor do they appear to 
have been considered by the writer of this portion of Genesis 
as destroyed by the deluge. Why should there be an ex- 
ception in favour of the fishes ? It is remarked by many 
critics that the *'fish also in the rivers and fresh-water lakes 
must almost all have died, as soon as the salt-water of the 
sea broke in, and rendered them brackish. And, as the 
flood still increased, and the waters of the sea began to lose 
their saltness, the fish in the sea and the shellfish on the 
shore must also have perished. The writer of Genesis cer- 
tainly did not anticipate the destruction ot the fishes ; for he 
makes no provision for the preservation of any of their 
species. 

Kalisch confirms this, and adds — It has been conjectured 
that the spawn of fishes might have been preserved, even if 
the living individuals perished ; but the spawn would, in an 
universal deluge, have lost its vitality, or have developed 
into fishes long before the expiration of the year ; so that 
these individuals also would have perished." In our ver- 
sion verse 7 ends with the words, For it repenteth me that I 
have made them." Bellamy translates it — Yet lam satis- 
fied that I have made them." 

•Verse 14. — Make thee an ark of gopher- wood: rooms 
shalt thou make in the ark, and sbalt pitch it within and 
without with pitch." Kalisch, in thus agreeing with Genesis, 
p. 734, makes the word G^^p (KeNlM) cells," rendering 
it — ^^In cells shalt thou make the ark." The word is 
plural, signifying some hollow receptacles, as nests, cells, 
cabins, &c. (See Parkhurst, p. 645.) The Douay puts it— 

Thou shalt make little rooms in the ark." If these were 
to divide the animals, the space would be much diminished 
thereby. Bellamy declares, p. 41. that the word lOynwi only 
means the two rooms for sacrifice; and he renders this 



ITS AUTHORSHIP AND AtJTHETS^TICITT. 



63 



rersO) " Make for thee an ark of the wood of gopher ; rooms 
shalt thou make in the ark : for thou shalt expiate in it, 
even a house, also with an outer room for atonement." Our 
translators give pitch within and ^' pitch without.'^ for 
that which Bellamy renders ^* sacrifice " and " atonement.'* 
Bellamy writes in wrath, charging the error on imperfect 
translations which grew from bad to worse until the time 
of Jerome, who, in the fourth century, endeavoured with 
the help of a Jew who did not understand Latin, to amend 
the earlier Latin versions. 

He adds* — " How far he succeeded in removing the 
errors of the first translators, we are all judges : for, from 
the copy of Jerome the Latin Vulgate made its appearance ; 
and from this contaminated source all the European trans- 
lations have been made — for sixteen centuries no translation 
of the sacred Scriptures has been made from the original 
Hebrew only. Even in the reigns of Elizabeth and J ames, 
when the old translation was rev^ised, no appeal was made 
to the Hebrew." The word which is always used, and 
which is the proper word for pitch, is fiat (ZePeTh) used 
twice in Isaiah, xxxiv. 9—^* And the streams thereof shall be 
turned into pitch, and the dust thereof into brimstone, and 
the land thereof shall become burning pitch," and once in 
Exodus, c. iii., v. 2. The word (K.eVeR), which the 
translators have rendered pitch, is not thus translated in 
any other part of the Bible." 

What a curious language this Hebrew, if atonement " 
may be converted into pitch," or vice versa ! The wood 
of the ark w^ould be but a fragile enclosure to many of the 
animals, who, during a year's imprisonment therein, would 
gnaw a considerable number of holes in various parts of the 
vessel. 

Yerse 15. — The length of the ark shall be three hundred 
cubits, the breadth of it fifty cubits, and the height of it 
thirty cubits." Hugh Millerf makes the ark 450 feet long, 
75 feet broad, and 45 feet high. Dr. Kitto increases this to 



* New Translation, p. 41. Jerome, quoted byDe Wette, says — For 
the most part among the Latins there are as many different Bibles 
as copies of the Bible, for every man has added or substracted, accord- 
ing to his caprice, as he saw fit." 

t Testimony of the liocks, p. 321. 



64 



GENESIS : 



547 feet in length and to 96 feet in breadth. Saiisch says. 
The cubit is the length of the forearm from the elbow to 
the extremity of the longest finger." It is unquestionable 
that if the dimensions above given are arbitrary — that is, if 
the ark were 50 cubits broad in every part from end to end 
— then the ark as a floating vessel, fit to swim out such a 
deluge, is simply architecturally impossible. Then that 
Noah, even with the assistance of his family, could construct 
the ark, and that when constructed it would contain all the 
animals and their food, are statements contradicted by the 
probabilities of the case. The ark was to contain one pair 
of every unclean species, and sevens or seven pairs of every 
clean species.* Now there are already known upwards of 
1600 species of mammalia, including at least two distinct 
kinds of elephant, so that there must have been at least four 
elephants in the ark ; there are seven different species of 
rhinoceros, so that at least fourteen of these bulky animals 
must have been present. The bison, buffalo, and ox furnish 
twenty species of huge animals, of whom either 140 or 280 
(seven, or seven pairs) representatives were to be contained 
in the ark ; the sheep, 27 species, either 189 or 378 ; the 
goats, the same as the oxen; the deer, 51 species, give 
either 357 or 714 ; antelopes, 48 species, either 336 or 672. 
These are only a few of the illustrations as to large bodied 
animals, and might be enlarged with the various kiris of 
horses, lions, tigers, &c., the whole forming an enormous 
sum total. Then there are the birds, some of the large 
winged species requiring an extremely wide space to occa- 
sionally stretch themselves in. Then as to the insects, which 
were estimated in 1842 to consist of no fewer than 550,000 
species. How could these all be brought to one centre and 
kept there? Many have no wings, and but feeble powers of 
locomotion, many live only a few hours or days after obtain- 
ing their wings, and there are myriads able to subsist only 
on plants found in limited botanic centres. To invent a 
miracle to answer the objection is but adding a difficulty 
rather than removing one. Some of the aquatic birds 
would habitually require water, yet no reservoirs or swim- 
ming tanks are provided. Many animals live only in % 



• Kalisch, Genesis, d. 211. Miller, Test, of Rocks, p. 328, etc. 



ITS ArTHOESTTIP AND ArTHENTICITT. 



65 



certain zone, and perish if suddenly transported to an 
entirely different climate. Were all the laws of physi- 
0I027 interfered with to enable the animals to live? 
such miracle is recorded. 

Verse 16. — A window shalt thou make to the ark, and 
in a cubit shalt thou finish it above ; and the door of the 
ark shalt thou set in the side thereof ; with lower, second, 
and third stories shalt thou make it." Was there only one 
window to the ark ? If yes. where was it placed, and 
what was its size ? The Douay has, In a cubit thou shalt 
finish the top of it," and this at first sight agrees with 
Bellamy, who says, Moreover of a cubit thou shalt finish 
it at the summit ;" but Bellamy declares that it was the ark 
and not the window which was to be narrowed to a cubit 
at the top of the roof. One window, wherever placed, and 
of whatever reasonable size, could not possibly light the 
whole three storied vessel, even tolerably, and yet one 
window, apparently a cubit wide at the top, closed, I sup- 
pose, during the rain, and one door, necessarily closed 
during the flood, are the only apparent means of ventilation 
and light. The door was most certainly closed, for we are 
told that God shut Xoah in the ark. The window appears 
as certainly to have been closed for forty days until ZS oab 
opened it to send out the raven. 

Verses 19 and 20. — And of every living thing of all 
fiesh, two of every sort shalt thou bring into the ark. to 
keep them alive with thee; they shall be male and female. 
Of fowls after their kind, and of cattle after their kind, of 
every creeping thing of the earth after his kind; two of 
every sort shall come unto thee, to keep them alive. ' These 
shoiild be compared with chap, vii., verses 2 and 3 : — Of 
every clean beast thou shalt take to thee by sevens,* the 
male and his female ; and of beasts that are not clean by 
two, the male and his female. Of fowls also of the air by 
sevens, the male and the female ; to keep seed alive upon 
the face of all the earth." If taken as written by one pen, 
these passages contradict each other as to the number of 
animals to be taken into the ark ; and those who support 
the document theory refer to these verses as illustPLitions 



The Douay has "seven and seven " of the clean. 



66 



GENESIS? 



of the doctrine that several documents, and these of an in- 
congruous character, have been used in the compilation of 
Q-enesis, The seven and two story is alleged to be a frag- 
ment of the Jehovah Document, and the ^'two of every 
sort " a portion of the Elohim Document.* Kalisch says, 

But after even it had been mentioned that Noah had exe- 
cuted all that God had commanded him (vi. 22), the text 
not only repeats in the first ten verses of the seventh chap- 
ter several of the statements already distinctly made, but, 
what is more impgrtant, is in one point irreconcilable with 
the preceding narrative. Noah was commanded to take into 
the ark seven pairs of all clean, and one pair of all unclean ; 
whereas he had before been ordered to take one pair of 
every species, no distinction whatever between clean and 
unclean animals having been made. All the attempts at 
arguing away this discrepancy have been utterly unsuccess- 
ful." It is puzzling, as the animals were not divided into 
clean and unclean until the commandments given to Moses, 
how Noah was to distinguish between the kinds. 

Verse 21. — And take thou unto thee of all food that is 
eaten, and thou shalt gather it to thee ; and it shall be for 
food for thee, and for them." This injunction to Noah is a 
most extraordinary one : he is to go out through the length 
and breadth of the earth and gather food for himself and 
the pairs saved. Did he select spare animals as food for the 
carnivorous beasts, birds, and reptiles ? If yes, how is it these 
are not mentioned ? Did he and his three sons go out to 
collect fish for those birds and beasts, whose diet they are ? 
If yes, how did he preserve them in the ark ? Did these 
animals intended for food come to Noah voluntarily ? If 
yes, where is this miracle alleged? Or did he and his 
family, in addition to their ark-building labour, have to 
hunt and fish in order to procure more than twelve 
months' food for the animals saved from drowning? Then 
for the birds and other animals whose food consists of 
the moths, grubs, worms, and other members of the insect 
kingdom. Did INoah go out to collect these ? If yes, where 
were all these living things intended for food stored when 
Elected, taking into account that some members of the 



De Wette, Books otf Moses, S 150 liaiisch, Genesis, 183 



ITS AUTHOESHIP AXD AUTHENTICITY. 



67 



food store would be inclined to eat their fellows ? Then the 
vegetable food, the green and preserved fodder, the grow- 
ing vegetables and flowers for those insects and birds, which 
cannot live without them. How are these accounted for ? 
There is no mention of a garden or plantation in the ark. or 
of water provided to quench the thirst of the animals pre- 
served. Priaulx says — " The Elohim gives Xoah instructions 
to build an ark, and instructions which pretty clearly show 
that Noah knew nothing of shipbuilding; and yet follow 
these instructions to the letter — build the vessel to order 
and load it as this ark was loaded, and it would not, and 
could not, float ; unless, indeed, you built it on a raft. But, 
however, let the ark be built— let it float — -how then do you 
provide light and air for the crowds within the cells of its 
several stories? How do you cleanse off the impurities of 
this Augean stable ? And how, with a crew of eight per- 
sons only, do you manage daily to supply so many animals, 
all so different in their habits, with their just proportions of 
wholesome food 

Chap vii., v. 11. — In the six hundredth year of Noah's 
life, in the second month, the seventeenth day of the month, 
the same day." Josephus makes the flood commence either 
600 or one thousand years and ten days later than our 
Bible ; for he says it began on the 27th day of the month 
and 2656 years from Adam. In his additions of the ages 
immediately after he only makes this 2256 years.* In 
dealing with the chronologies, Josephus quaintly observes 
— Let every one look upon them as he sees flt." 

Verse 11. — The fountains of the great deep broken up, 
and the windows of heaven were opened.'* The Douay 
makes windows " into flood-gates. It is evident that the 
writer thought of the waters above the firmament (heaven), 
which, according to him, could only be let down on to the 
doomed earth by opening some window or flood-gate through 
which they might pass (see page 14). The same language 
IS used in chap, viii., v. 2. — The fountains also of the deep 
and the windows of heaven were stopped, and the rain from 
heaven was restrained." The notion of suppKes obtained 
from the deep to deluge the earth is charming in its sim- 



• Antiq^uities, Book 1, eax) 5 



68 



GENESIS : 



plicity — as if emptying an ocean or lake, however deep, 
could do more than result in a partial and temporary sub- 
mergence of other land than the ocean- bed left bare by the 
receding waters. The idea of windows in heaven to let out 
the water is scarcely less absurd. 

Kalisch, in stating the difficulties of the deluge story, 
says* — ^' The waters are represented to have covered the 
earth to the height of fifteen cubits above the tops of the 
mountains. This would require, at least, eight times the 
aggregate quantity of water contained in all the seas and 
oceans of the earth. But the rain can, even if the clouds at 
once discharge all their stores, cause a water- sheet of only 
a few inches in thickness ; and the sea might spread its 
floods over the earth, but it does not thereby increase the 
actual amount of water. The sudden addition of so great a 
mass of water would materially change the action of gravity 
upon the earth ; the mutation of the axis would be varied, 
and not only the orbit of our planet, but the whole solar 
system must be deranged." From whence was the water 
to effect an universal deluge derived ? From the fountains 
of the deep it could not come, from the windows of heaven 
it did not come, and the Bible names no other source. Sup- 
posing the deluge to have happened, what then became of 
the water ? They returned from off the earth," " decreased 
continually," and " dried up," so says the Bible. But 
where did the waters go, and how? As to this the Bible is 
silent, and without a miracle, the draining away is as im- 
possible as the deluge. 

Verse 16. — And the Lord shut him in." The Douay has 
— And the Lord sh^ut him in on the outside." Kalisch 
puts it — " And the Lord closed behind him." Bellamy 
says — " When the ineffable Deity is mentioned, such un- 
dignified and familiar language does not become the crea- 
ture; it is bringing the infinite Jehovah to a level with 
man. It must appear obvious that there was no necessity 
for such a translation : as the man, under whose direction 
the ark was made, was capable of shutting the door of the 
ark." The word translated " shut," Bellamy renders as 

delivered." 



* Genesis, p. 211. 



ITS AUTHOESHIP AND AUTHENTICITY. 



Verse 11. — ^- And the dove came in to him in the even- 
ing; and, lo, in her mouth was an olive leaf pluckt off; so 
Noah knew that the waters were abated from off the earth.'' 
Kalisch says — Tresh olive leaf." Colenso says* — The 
difficiilty, that so long an immersion in deep water would 
kill the olive, had, no doubt, never occurred to the writer, 
who may have observed that trees survived ordinary partial 
floods, and inferred that they would just as well be able to 
sustain the deluge to which his imagination subjected them. 
Of the enormous pressure that would- be caused by such a 
superincumbent mass of wat-er, he was, we may be sure, 
entirely ignorant. What would be the state of an olive-tree, 
after having been buried for months in water, some thou- 
sands of ftet deep, without its natural supplies of air and 
light?" 

Kalisch observes that There are trees still existing older 
than the date of the Noachian Deluge. If they had been 
submersed in water, they would scarcely, even had they 
outHved that catastrophe, have maintained the strength 
necessary to carry their existence through so many millen- 
niums. Of the 100,000 species of known plants, very few 
would survive submersion for a whole year ; at least, three- 
fourths of them would necessarily have perished in an uni- 
versal deluge. It is agreed by all botanical authorities, 
that, though partial inundations of rivers do not long or 
materially change the vegetation of a region, the infu- 
sion of great quantities of salt water destroys it entirely for 
long periods. But the earth produced the olive and the vine 
imme~diately after the cessation of the deluge." It is hard 
to understand why Xoah sent out the raven and the dove. 
The ark was stranded on a mountain, from whence Xoah 
might have daily seen the recession of the waters. He could 
have learned all, and much more, by the aid of his eyes than 
the raven and dove could tell him. 

The following extracts from Kalisch seem unanswerable : 
— The surface of the earth is, in many vast tracts, covered 
with accumulations of soil, sand, and gravel ; they have no 
connection with the rock formations of the former ages ; and 
are generally known under the name of diluvium ^ since they 



* Part -i, p. iS, 



70 



GENESIS : 



are believed to be the result of some vast flood. But these 
aggregations were indisputably produced by many currents 
of differerit force, and from different directions ; they are 
the result of different ages, and are all of a local extent ; 
they have in some cases been washed away by some new 
current ; they are in other instances overlaid by more recent 
drifts ; they are produced by the long action of the -floods 
working from deep waters, by currents, eddies, and tides ; 
they are, in fact, nothing but a part of the ordinary and 
uninterrupted process by which the continents have gradually 
formed and been elevated during unnumbered ages. There 
is, therefore, no probability whatever that this diluvium is 
the result of a transitory and general deluge. . . . 

" A temporary deluge could never have produced the 
geological changes observable in the superficial deposit. The 
animals w^hose remains have been discovered in the ' mam- 
malifer ous crag,' not only of Great Britain but of Northern 
Siberia? the elephant, the rhinoceri, the hippopotamus, the 
hyenas and tigers, cannot have been transported thither by 
the flood from the inttw:* tropical regions ; this is not merely 
improbable on account of the vast distance of four to five 
thousand miles which separate those respective lands ; or 
on account of the great numbers in which they are found in 
the same localities ; or on account of the remarkable circum- 
stance, that the shed antlers of the great Irish Elk, which 
exceeded in bulk and size the largest horses, and measured 
upwards of ten feet in height, occur everywhere, and mostly 
in an uninjured state, together with the bones and skeletons 
of that animal : but it is rendered impossible by the facts 
that they are extant in beds of various ages ; and still more 
by the observations of comparative anatomy ; for the latter 
has shown beyond a doubt that those northern animals were 
very widely difierent, in their internal structure and their 
external provisions, from the same species now living in the 
southern climes ; the difierence is greater than between an 
ass and a horse, or between the dog and the wolf ; and it is 
certain beyond contradiction that those animals lived and 
died in the northern countries in which their remains have 
been found. It is known that the cavern of Kirkdale, in 
Yorkshire, contains the bones and remains of twenty-four . 
species of animals, from the pigeon and the mouse, to the 



ITS ATrTKOHSHTP ATO ATTTHE-N-TICITY. 



71 



hyena, the hippopofcamus, and rhinoceros. But the opening 
of the cavern is not larger than four feet; the huge bones 
cannot, therefore, have been washed thither bj the tropical 
waves; they are, besides, almost all of them gnawed, Si^^id 
show the clear marks of teeth, especially of hyenas', which 
in that haunt probably devoured their prey. . . 

The violent irruptions of water, and the up-heavings 
proceeding from the interior of the earth,' have alternately, 
and an indefinite number of times, immersed and elevated 
the same tract of land; every new geological period is 
marked by such an event ; the same part of the earth's 
surface was more than once sea and dry land ; but the last 
revolution of this kind occurred before the existence of man 
on earth ; in no stratum of the earth, nor even the very 
highest tertiary beds, have remains of human bodies or of 
human works been discovered ; they occur onl^ in the loose 
sand and gravel which cover the surface. It has, indeed, 
been alleged that human bones have been found in earlier 
rocks. But those instances are uncertain ; and have been 
declared inconclusive by almost all geological authorities. 
Man was called into being after the earth had carried its 
development forward to its present state. No deluge de- 
stroyed, therefore, a wicked and disobedient race of men. 

**The Biblical narrative relates that all the species of 
animals were preserved by Noah, and that they later pro- 
pagated themselves; it implies that the deluge was no 
violent convulsion or catastrophe, that it did not change 
the aspect of nature ; although it destroyed the living beings 
on the earth, it left no trace of its existence on the surface 
or in the interior ; it was an event of the existing creation ; 
the vegetable kingdom remained, essentially, uninjured; 
and the soil was soon afterwards fit for cultivation. . • , 

The older lateral cones of Mount Etna are, after a 
moderate computation, at least, twelve thousand years old ; 
they are composed of the ordinary incoherent materials ; 
and yet they show in no parts marks of denudation ; they 
retain in integrity their original shape ; a devastating deluge 
cannot, therefore, have passed over them within that period, 
^' In the centre of Trance, in the provinces of Auverofne 
and Languedoc, are still the remains of several hunar^d 
volcanic hills and mountains. The craters, some of which 



72 



GEITESIS t 



are higher than that of the Vesuvius, ejected immense 
masses of lava to the heights of fifty, one hundred, and 
many more feet, and spreading over many miles of area. 
Distant periods separate dilFerent eruptions. Distinct 
mineral formations, and an abundance of petrified vege- 
table and animal life, bespeak an epoch far anterior to the 
present condition of our planet. And yet, since these vol- 
canoes ceased to flow, rivers have worked their way through 
that vast depth of lava ; they have penetrated through basalt 
rocks one hundred and fifty feet in height, and have even 
considerably entered into the granite rocks beneath. The 
time required for such operation is immeasurably slow. 
Centuries are required to mark the least perceptible progress. 
The whole period, which was necessary for the rivers to 
overcome that hard and compact mass, is large almost 
beyond the conception of man ; all our measures of chrono- 
logy are insufiicient; and the mind stands nmazed at the 
notion of eternal time. That extraordinary region contains 
rocks, consisting of laminated formations of siliceous depo- 
sits ; one of the rocks is sixty feet in thickness ; and a mode- 
rate calculation shows that, at least, eighteen thousand years 
were required to produce that single pile. All these forma- 
tions, therefore, are far more remote than the date of the 
Noachian flood ; they show not the slightest trace of having 
been affected or disturbed by any general deluge ; their pro- 
gresshas beenslow, but uninterrupted; eventhepumice-stone, 
and other loose and light substances, with which many of 
those hills and the cones of the volcanic craters are covered, 
and which would have been washed away by the action of a 
flood, have remained entirely untouched."* 

Kalisch thus sums up : — " Greological evidence denies the 
possibility of an universal deluge, both in general and es- 
pecially within the last 5,000 years," yet he sajs — ''It is 
impossible to read the narrative of our chapter without 

* " Comp, Cuvier, Discours sur les Eevolutions de la Surfaoe du 
Globe; BucMand^ Feliquiae Diluvianse, and Bridgewater Treatise; De 
la BecJie, Geological Manual, p. 172, et. seq.; i/wr<?7m<?/^ Silurian 
System, cap. 36; Hitclicock^ Geology of Massachusetts, p. 148, ^t. seq. ; 
W, J, Hamilton, Tour in Asia Minor, vol. ii., p. 386; Lyell, Priuci- 
ples of Geology, vol. iv., p. 219; Pye Smith, Geol. and Script , pp. 
90—149; Hugh Miller, Testimony of the Books, pp. 306—350." 



rrS AUTHORSHIP ATSD AUTHENTIOITX. 



73 



being impressed that the whole earth was destined for 
destruction. This is so evident througaout the whole of the 
description, that it is unnecessary to adduce single instances. 
Such expressions, as ^ all the mountains were covered by 
the floods,' are asserted to mean a great part of them. In 
one case, the universality does not lie in the words merely, 
but in the tenor of the whole narrative. All flesh had cor- 
rupted its way before the Lord upon the earth (v. 12) ; 
therefore, the whole human race was to be destroyed with 
the earth. The text admits of no other acceptance but a 
universal flood." The text speaks of the whole earth, and 
of everything wherein was the breath of life. The ques- 
tion stands thus : — " Geology teaches the impossibility of 
a universal deluge since the last 6,000 years, but does not 
exclude a partial destruction of the earth's surface within 
that period. The Biblical text, on the other hand, demands 
the supposition of a universal deluge, and absolutely excludes 
a partial flood." 

It has been admitted by many that the deluge could not 
have been universal, and these have sought to urge that the 
Bible only teaches a partial deluge, and when you read to 
them, chap, vi., v. 17 — " And, behold, I, even I, do bring a 
flood of waters upon the earth, to destroy all flesh wherein 
is the breath of life, from under heaven ; and everything 
that is in the earth shall die.'' Chap, vii., v. 4 — " Every 
living substance that I have made will I destroy from off 
the face of the earth." Verses 21, 22, and 23— "And all 
flesh died that moved upon the earth, both of fowl, and of 
cattle, and of beast, and of every creeping thing that 
ereepeth upon the earth, and every man. All in whose 
nostrils was the breath of life, of all that was in the dry 
land, died. And every living substance was destroyed which 
was upon the face of the ground, both man, and cattle, and 
the creeping things, and the fowl of the heaven " — they 
reply, but the whole earth may not, at the date of the deluge, 
have been inhabited by i®an and the lower animals, and^ 
therefore, the deluge need only have extended to the parts 
occupied by animal life ; but this answer will not suffice if you 
read chap, vii., verses 19 and 20 — " And the waters prevailed 
exceedingly upon the earth ; and all the high hills, that were 
under the whole heaven, were covered. Fifteen cubits up- 



74 



GENESIS : 



ward did the waters prevail: and the mountains were 
covered." A deluge, which prevailed above the top of 
Ararat for 150 days, must have extended to the whole earth. 
The words of the text are as express in favour of the uni- 
versality of the deluge as they can possibly be. 

Chapter viii., v. 4 — Colenso argues* that, as the summit 
of Ararat is 17,000 feet high, 3,000 feet above the region of 

Eerpetual snow, it would have been impossible for JSToah, 
is family, and the animals to have remained there for more 
than seven months — viz., from the 17th day of the 7th 
month, to the 27th day of the second month of the following 
year, A miracle alone could have prevented all from being 
frozen to death. This objection would be the same whether 
the deluge were partial or universal. 

Chapter viii.~" And Noah builded an altar unto the Lord, 
and took of every clean beast, and of every clean fowl, and 
offered burnt-offerings on the altar." It is hardly possible to 
imagine a more revolting picture than this. According to the 
text, God had just finished the act of destroying, by a fearful 
deluge, not only the whole human race, with the exception of 
Noah and his family, but also the whole of the animal king- 
dom, save the few of each species saved in the ark. And yet 
more life is now destroyed in sacrifice to the Deity who 
has so recently consummated his vengeance by the destruc- 
tion of every creature outside the ark wherein was the breath 
of life. The earth must yet have been strewed with decay- 
ing carcases ; the whole world must have been one vast 
slaughterhouse, and yet the sacrifice is not enough. The 
fumes of the burning victims are to afford pleasure to the 
infinite Deity. 

Verse 21.—" And the Lord smelled a sweet savour ; and 
the Lord said in his heart, I will not again curse the ground 
any more for man's sake ; for the imagination of man's 
heart is evil from his youth : neither will I again smite any 
more everything living, as I have done." Instead of verse 
21, Bellamy translates — " Jehovah accepted the incense of 
rest ; moreover, Jehovah said in his heart, I will neither 
consume nor curse again the ground for the transgressions 
of men, though the imagination of the heart of man be ev l 



* 4, p. 196. 



ITS AUTHOESHIP AKD ATJTHENTICITT. 



75 



from his youth. No. I will neither consume, nor smite 
again all living, as I have done." That the Lord should smell 
a sweet savour is an idea worthy the Hebrew records, and 
the statement deserves to accompany those in which God is 
represented as waxing wrath, coming down from and going 
up to heaven, walking and dining with Abraham, wrestling 
with Jacob, and carried about on the top of a box by the 
Levites. Sir William Drummond, in the preface to his 

GEdipus Judaicus/' says — The reason which is given why 
the Lord would not curse the ground any more appears 
to me to be very strange. God smelled a sweet savour, and 
because his olfactory nerves were tickled, he would not curse 
the ground any more." According to our version the whole 
deluge is inefficacious, man's heart is still evil, and the punish- 
ment having been entirely useless as a reformatory measure, 
God determines not to destroy mankind again in such 
wholesale fashion. 

It is impossible to dismiss this deluge story without some 
remarks on its utter failure as a remedial measure, if so in- 
tended by Deity, and on its terrible brutality, if regarded 
only as an act of divine vengeance. Genesis represents man 
as created good ; yet in a short time, influenced by the sur- 
roundings prepared by God, man becomes so bad, that God 
grieved at his heart— repents that he has made him, and to 
relieve himself from this source of grief, determines to des- 
troy man from the face of the earth, together with every 
living thing, save th-ose protected in the ark. 

But the human beings saved from the deluge were by no 
means without taint; they were liable to the same vices, and in 
the end, they and their descendants actually committed as great 
crimes, and this result must have been known to the Deity 
if all- wise. God confesses as much when he resolves that he 
will not again destroy the earth for man's evil imaginations. 
The deluge was as useless as it was crisel, and does not pre- 
sent any feature acceptable to a humane man. Those saved 
in the ark are evidently preserved not from mercy, but to 
prevent the necessity for another creation of the animal 
kingdom. 

Chap, ix., verse 4. — But flesh with the life thereof, 
which is the blood thereof, shall ye not eat." The Douay 
translates this saying, *^ that flesh with blood ye shall not 



76 



eat." The Breeches Bible says, " But flesh with the life 
thereof, I mean, with the blood thereof.'' Bellamy renders 
it, But flesh with his soul, his blood." Kalisch gives 
— *^ Only flesh with the soul, which is its blood." The 
word translated life in our version is (Ne Phe Sh,) the 
same word which in c. ii., v. 7., is there translated soul 
(see page 42.) Either the Bible must be taken to teach 
that beasts have souls as well as man, or that man has no 
other life in kind than have the beasts. The Roman 
Catholics avoid the difficalty by deliberately omitting the 
words which is the life thereof " altogether. 

Priaulx says,* In the second chapter Jehovah Elohim 
treathes into man's nostrils, and the plastic clay becomes a 
Kiving soul. The life then of the man made by Jehovah 
Elohim, of the dust of the ground, seems to have been in 
the breath, according to this passage, however the life of the 
man made by the Elohim, and made in his image, is in the 
yood." Both these representations as to human life may 
be erroneous, but both cannot be right. 

Verse 5. — At the hand of every beast will I require 
\t." If there is any meaning contained in these words, they 
5each that God will hold the beast responsible for any des- 
truction of human life. Are beasts accountable ? If yes, 
are birds, fishes, and insects ? Or may a rattle-snake or a 
shark destroy human life with impunity, while God punishes 
the lion, tiger, and leopard? 

Verses 9 and 10. — Did God make a covenant with the 
beasts? Do the beasts understand the covenant made with 
them ? Voltaire, and others, have made merry over this cove- 
nant. But why, if serpents and asses can talk, as the Bible 
makes them, should not they be partners to a covenant ? 

Verse 13. — I do set my bow.'' Kalisch, Bellamy, and 
the Breeches Bible give, " I have set my bow," the Douay 
"I will set my bow." The Hebrew must be a glorious 
language, if past tense, present tense, and future tense are 
so easily mistaken. Our version and the Douay both con- 
vey the impression that the rainbow had not existed before 
the time of Noah ; that prior to the era of Noah, men had 
been without the brilliant coloured arch, which now always 
makes its appearance if the sun is shining brightly, while 



* Questiones Mosaicse, p. 216. 



AUTHOBSHIP AITD AUTHEKTICITT, 77 

rain is falling in the region of the sky opposite to the sun. 
The theory of the refraction of the sun's rays was probably 
unkiLown to the writers of Genesis. 

Home* says it is objected that ^^as the same causes pro- 
duce the same effects, the rainbow must have existed before 
the flood." Answer. So it may, but not as a sign of the 
covenant. The Hebrew word which in Genesis ix., 13, is 
rendered set, ought to be rendered appoint^ in which 
case the passage would run thus: — I do appoint my bow 
in the cloud to be a sign or token of the covenant between 
me and theoarth." 

Colenso saysf — The writer evidently intends to account 
in this way for the first appearance of the rainbow. This 
is the plain meaning of the language here used, which must 
be twisted to imply that, though the rainbow had often been 
seen before, as it must have been if there was rain and sun- 
shine together before the deluge, it was first, after the deluge, 
made the sign of peace between God and man. The writer 
supposes it was then first set in the clouds after the deluge." 

Verse 21. — Noah's drunkenness and Ham's offence so 
soon after the deluge, have been urged as some evidence that 
the family saved from the deluge were not quite free from 
spot or blemish. Bellamy denies that Noah was in his tent, 
and says that the Hebrew text represents Noah in the taber- 
nacle. According to Parkhurst, he word n^nt^ (AELE) 
certainly does not mean his tent. 

There seems great injustice in Noah's curse against 
Canaan, who, according to the text, is unconnected with his 
father's offence. Ham, the real culprit, escapes uncursed. 

Bellamy in the notes to his translations, denies that Noah 
was drunken. J He denies that Noah was in his tent at 
all. He denies that Noah was uncovered, and he denies that 
Ham saw his father's nakedness. He renders verses xxi. to 
xxiv. thus : — ^' Then he drank of the wine and was satisfied, 
for he himself opened the most inward ^art of the taber- 
nacle, where Ham, the father of Canaan, exposed the symbols 
of his father ; which he declared to his two brethren without. 



* Introduction to the Bible, p. 19« 
t Part 4, p. 223. 
% Gene«is, 4S 



78^ 



GENESIS J 



But Shem, with Japheth, had taken the vestment, which 
both of them set up for a portion ; thus they afterwards 
went, and concealed the symbols of their father with their 
faces backward, but the symbols of their father they saw 
not. When Noah ended his wine, for he knew that his 
younger son had offered for himself." 

Chap 10.— There is very strong reason to doubt whether 
any of the names given in this chapter are or ever were the 
names of individuals. Some of them are certainly by the 
text itself not meant for individual names at all, and others 
are plural nouns, more fairly applicable to the inhabitants of 
a district, than to one individual. Josephus suggests that 
the countries took their name from the first inhabitants, but 
even the adoption of this suggestion will not remove the 
difficulty, that several of the words used as proper names of 
individuals, are certainly plural, implying that the genealo- 
gical table of this chapter was an ex post facto endeavour to 
account for such nations as were known to the compiler of 
the table. 

Gliddon's valuable treatise on the tenth chapter of 
Genesis, contained in the Types of Mankind,'' and 
Kalisch's elaborate Essay, in his commentary on Genesis, 
lire too long to qaote here, but will well repay perusal. 

Verse 3. — Eiphath J-\Q*^^ (E I Phe Th) in 1 Chronicles, c. 
i. V. 6, is called Diphath, ;:J3^'-f (D I Ph e Th) but the 
translators, to avoid unpleasantness, have written Eiphath 
in both cases. Some of the editions of the Bible have in the 
margin of Chronicles or Diphath, as it is in some copies,'* 
V. iv. Dodanim Q^^IT (^^ N I M) in the margin of 
Genesis is written or as some copies read it Eodanim." 
In verse vii. of 1 Chronicles, chap, i., the word is 0*^3^^ 
(E U D e N I M) so that here two letters are difierent in 
the Hebrew text ; yet the translators have in Chronicles 
written it Dodanim, to make it agree with Genesis, though 
they have the less reason for this, because if they followed 
the sound given to the letter in the word lavan in verse vii. 
of Chronicles, they ought to have written Eavadanim. This 
criticism of mere mistakes of letters would be without value 
were it not even yet contended by many of the clergy, that 
the Bible is God's inspired word free from error, and to con- 
fiite this, it is necessary to expose the many trivial as well ai 



ITS ATTTHOESHIP ATO AUTHEOTICITY. 7^ 

grave blunders which abound as well in the Hebrew text as 
in the translation. It was often pretended that the text 
was guarded against the possibility of error by the pre- 
cautions of the Masorites — this is simply untrue. They 
indeed counted the verses in the Bible, but their counting 
neither agrees with the Talmud nor with the authorised 
version. Before the time of the Masora, the text had been 
corrupted. The cabalists and others, to support their 
theories, had removed and misplaced consonants, and 
mangled words in the most capricious manner.* Since their 
era new errors have increased the confusion. 

Spinoza, speaking of the Hebrew text, says — The books 
of the Old Testament have by no means been so very care- 
fully preserved by those into whose hands they fell succes- 
sively, but that blemishes have crept into them," that errors, 
blemishes, and mistakes have crept into Scripture, no one 
possessed of sound judgment can, in my opinion, deny."t 

Verse 5. — By these were the isles of the Gentiles divided 
in their lands ; every one after his tongue, after their fami- 
lies, in their nations.^' A^'hat is meant by isles of the 
Gentiles?*' Kalisch translates it " isles of the nations." 
Bellamy, countries of the Gentiles." The word translated 
Gentiles is, in the Hebrew, almost identical with the word 
at the end of the same verse translated nations. In Genesis 
c. xiv., V. 1, and Joshua, c. xii., v. 23, precisely the same 
word is translated nations. 

Verses 8 and 9. — And Cush begat Nimrod ; he began to 
be a mighty one in the earth. He wa« a mighty hunter 
before the Lord ; wherefore it is said, Even as Nimrod the 
mighty hunter before the Lord. " Bellamy translates these 
verses — "Now Cush begat Nimrod; he prophaned to be 
mighty in the earth. He was a mighty destroyer, in the 
presence of Jehovah ; concerning which thing it shall be 
said : Like !Nimrod the mighty destroyer in the presence of 
Jehovah." He adds, J "As to the population of the world 
at this period, we have no certain or probable account 
given ; it cannot be supposed that the families and names 

* De Wette, vol. i. sec. 91. 

t Tractatus Theologico Politicus, chap, ix., sec 32 and 34:, 
t New Translation, p. 52. 



80 



ITS ATJTHOESHIP AND AUTHENTICITY. 



introduced made up the population of all the countrieti 
and cities mentioned. The population at this time must 
have been great, or he could not have made the four 
great cities here spoken of, the principal cities of his 
kingdom, for this is the meaning ; ^nn (Th E I) is not 
noticed in the common version (verse x.), which means 
revived, caused to live, made famous, as the principals of 
his kingdom, Babel, Erech, Accad, and Calneh." According 
to Kalisch excavations amongst the ruins of Babylon, give 
us TJrukh, as reigning about B.C. 2230, or only 119 years 
after the deluge.* According to the Bible, there were only 
two generations between Noah and Nimrod, and yet the 
population is already so great that kings rule over great 
cities. 

It is quite certain that the Hebrew does not, in verse xi., 
mean Asshur as a person, but as a place where Nineveh and 
the other cities were built. Kalisch renders verse xi., ^* out 
of that land he went forth to Asshur, and built Nineveh." 
Bellamy, *' from this land he went forth to Assyria, and 
there built Nineveh." Our translators having undoubtedly 
translated the country into a man, it is a problem worthy 
solution on the part of the pious, whether the blunders such 
as this may be safely believed in by the ignorant, and re- 
jected by the educated, without endangering their respective 
salvations. 

Chapter x. — Volneyt has a lengthy chapter in examina- 
tion of this 10th c. of Genesis, in which he alludes to the 
name Javan in verse 2, which in the Hebrew is written 
(I TJ N) or (I 0 N), and which Volney and others iden- 
ify with the lonians, a colony alleged to have been estab- 
lished in Asia about eighty years after the Trojan war — 
that is, about B.C. 1130, being three centuries after the Book 
of Genesis was written, if Moses was its author. Volney 
argues that the word Nimrod, which, he says, has no mean- 
ing in Hebrew, signifies ^' the Star of Ethiopia " — Ethiopia 
and Cush being the same. In effect, Volney seeks to iden- 
tify Nimrod the mighty hunter with the constellation Orion, 

Chap xi., w. 1 and 2. — That all the inhabitants of the 
earth should speak one language would not have been ex- 

* Genesis. 288. 

t New Researches, cap. 18 and 19. See Colenso, Part 4, p. 244. 



GENESIS ! 



81 



traordinarj, if the sole inhabitants were only the descen- 
dants of Noah for about five generations ; but, in that case, 
this chapter, in order of time, should be prior to chap x., 
where verses 5, 20, and 31 speak of already existing diversi- 
ties of language. Besides, the whole of the inhabitants of the 
world would hardly have beeii journeying from the East, after 
they had built the cities mentioned in verses 10, 11, and 12 
of the previous chapter. Nor would a journey from Ararat 
to Shinar be exactly a journey from the east. It would be 
father from north to south. These two verses of chap. xi. 
treat the whole human race then existing, as if but one tribe 
travelling from the east in search of some good camping 
ground which they find in Shinar. The marginal chrono- 
logy of the orthodox version gives about 100 years between 
the deluge and the building of Babel ; if before the birth of 
Peleg's son, it must have been less than 130 years. The 
marginal note to the Breeches Bible fixes it — In the yeere 
an hundreth and thirtie after the flood," and, taking even a 
most extraordinarily rapid multiplication of the human race 
in an age where the first child was not born until the father 
had attained thirty, this would leave a very scant number 
of builders for so vast a structure as Babel. It is extra-^ 
ordinary that Noah, who is spoken of as a perfect man in 
Genesis, and whose faith is recorded in Hebrews, should not 
have made some remonstrance as to this Babel building* 
The text does not refer to him as concerned in the matter, 
yet, if the Bible be true, Noah must have been present at 
the time. Priaulx notices this, well remarking that Noah, 
as head and chief of the great human family, should have 
ruled it, controlling or influencing its counsels and directing 
its actions. The preceding chapter speaks of four cities, in- 
cluding Babel, erected in the land of Shinar, and of three 
other cities, including Nineveh, built in Assyria, yet here 
Babel itself is left unfinished ; and if the story be true, the 
other cities could not have been founded at that time. 

Verse 9. — The derivation," savs Colenso,* *^ of the name 
^2!2 (B^BeL) from the Hebrew (B^LeL) confound^ 

which seems to be the connecting point between the story 
and the tower of Babel, is altogether incorrect, the word being 
compounded either of ' Bel,' so as to mean House of Bel, 



* Part 4, p. 268. 



82 



GEKESTS : 



Court of Bel, Gate of Bel, or, perhaps, as some suppose, of 
EL or IL, in which case BabEL means Gate of God." If 
the above be true, and Colenso quotes in confirmation 
Dalit zch and Professor Eawlinson, then the accuracy ot the 
text is very strongly impeached. If Babel originally meant, 
and indeed still means, a place of the God Bel, then there 
is a misstatement in the words of the text, " Therefore is 
the name of it called Babel, because the Lord did there 
confound all the language of the earth," Herodotus ex- 
pressly calls the Tower of Babel the Temple of Bel.* Volney,t 
after quoting from Ktesias as to the building of the walls 
and gigantic works of Babylon under Semiramis, and notic- 
ing that a Babel had been erected long prior, says that the 
circumstance of 2,000,000 men forcibly levied throughout 
the whole of the vast dominions of Semiramis wearing dif- 
ferent dresses, speaking probably more than eighty different 
dialects, may have given rise to a fable of confusion of ton- 
gues. Volney denies that the word Babel signifies in the 
Hebrew confusion; he renders it, Palace of Bel. The cal- 
culations of Volney would carry back the ancient Tower of 
Bel or Belus to a period long anterior to the Noachian 
deluge. 

Verse 4. — Josephus says that it was Nimrod who said 
he would be revenged on God, if He should have a mind to 
drown the world again, for he would build a tower too high 
for the waters to be able to reach. The text asserts that 
the inhabitants of the world declared their intention to 
build a tower, whose top might reach to heaven. The writer 
of this part of the Bible, ignorant of astronomy, does not 
seem to consider this heaven-reaching tower impossible, for 
he says that the Lord came down to see the tower, and ex- 
pressed his opinion that the builders would carry out their 
intention. The God of Genesis does not seem able to see 
from heaven to earth, or to know what is going on amongst 
human kind without a personal visit to the scene of action. 
He is neither omnipresent, nor omniscient. Bellamy, who 
does not believe that God did inspire all men with new lan- 
guages in the same moment wherein he caused each indivi- 

* Parkhurst's Lexicon, p. 65, and Geeenius, p. 100. See also 
Jiichorn's Simonius, p. 204. 
t New Researches, Part 3, cap. 3 to cap. 7. 



ITS ATJTHOESHIP AlO) AUTHEITTTCITT. 83 



dual to forget every word of his old ion^e, declares the 
authorised translation to be incorrect. He says,* If we 
were to entertain no higher sentiments concerning it, than 
that of building a tower whose top should reach unto heaven, 
to avoid the fate of a second deluge, and which, to put a 
stop to, required the interference of God in a way incon- 
sistent with every idea we can form of his attributes ; then 
there would be an end to all rational religion, and the Bible 
would be brought to a level with the tales of the Persian 
Soph. He who, by omniscience, knows all thtags, who, by 
his omnipotence and omnipresence is present to execute 
his will, had no necessity to come down from heaven to 
confound their language." The phrase, " Let us go down," 
is a puzzling one for those believing in the unity of Deity. 

Verse 12. — And Arphaxad lived five and thirty years, and 
begat Salah." But, according to Luke, chap iii,, vv. 35 and 
36, it was Cainan and not Arphaxad who was the father of 
Salah. Josephust and the Book of Chronicles concur with 
Genesis in excluding Cainan. The Sei)tuagint inserts his 
name. Which ought we to believe of our authorised ver- 
sion, the Old Testament or the New ? Or shall we follow 
the Septuagint version? Is a belief in the existence of 
Cainan material ? If yes, how is the contradiction to be re- 
conciled ? 

Professor EawlinsonJ prefers the Septuagint as deserving 
most respect, because he says it is the version most com- 
monly quoted in the N'ew Testament ; and, undoubtedly, 
those who believe Jesus to have been the son of God, or 
identical with God, ought to consider Jesus and his disciples 
as able to decide which version best represented God's reve- 
lation. But, in case the Septuagint is preferred to the 
Hebrew, then the believer must alter nearly the whole of 
his sacred chronology. J osephus disagrees in nearly every 
statement of the ages of the patriarchs. He makes Arphaxad 
135 at Salah's birth instead of 35 as in our version ; he 
makes Salah 130 at Heber^s birth instead of 30 ; Heber 
134 at the birth of Peleg instead of 34; Peleg 130 at the 
birth of Keu or Eagau instead of 30 ; and ^u or Eagau 

* New Translation, p. 34. 
t Antiquities, Book i., cap. 6. 
X Aids to Faith, p. 252. 



84 



GENESIS : 



130 at the birth of Serug instead of 32 ; Serug 132 at the 
birth of Nahor instead of 30. 

Verse 26 — And Terah lived 70 years and begat Abram.'* 
Verse 32 — And the days of Terah were 205 years, and 
Terah died in Haran." Chap, xii., v. 1—" Now the Lord 
had said unto Abram, Get thee out/' &e.* Verse 4 — r 
♦< And Abram was 75 years old when he departed out of 
Haran," According to Acts, chap, vii., v. 4, this departure 
was after Terah's death, so that Abraham mubt have been 
75 years old, at least 130 years after he was born. Kalisch 
suggests, following Usher and others, but contrary to the 
Bible, that Abraham journeyed to Canaan during the lifetime 
of Terah, and thus avoids the difficulty t which the Samari- 
tan text endeavours to remove by arbitrarily changing the 
number 205 into 145 . . . this is not the only falsification 
which the numbers of one chapter have suffered." Kalisch 
complains of other unwarrantable alterations made in the 
Samaritan text. What a glorious prospect for the man to 
be saved by faith. His Bible is a translation from the 
Hebrew, the translation incorrectly executed. Of the Bible 
there are ancient versions, Hebrew, Samaritan, and Septua-^ 
gint — all of which have been more or less tampered with, 
and abound in inaccuracies and misstatements — yet it is by 
implicit faith in this Bible he is to have eternal salvation. 
Luke Burke,t after pointing out the inaccuracy as to the 
ages of Abraham and Terah, and the shorter term of 145 
years assigned to the latter by the Samaritan version, says— 

The discrepancy we have pointed out was perceived by the 
Samaritan doctors, and thus coolly rectified; sixty years 
being lopped from off the age of Terah. An easy and ex-.^ 
peditious way of settling historical difficulties. But those 
who did not hesitate to shorten the life of Lamech by 100 
years, that of Jared by 115, and that of Methusaleh by 249, 
could not feel much scruple in abridging that of Terah by 
nearly one-third. Surely it is but charity to suppose that 

* This is a mistranslation. The text reads, Apd Jeue said." The 
Douay translates it, " And the Lord said.'* The Now the Lord liad 
said " is a rendering which implies a direction that might have been 
give 1 long since in Terah' s lifetime, instead of following after Terah'i 
death. 

f Kalisch: Genesis, p, 324. 
t Ethnological Journal, p. 3^ 



ITS AUTHORSHIP AKD AUTHEIfTICITT. 



85 



when these changes were made, the Book of Genesis was not 
considered the word of revelation. Such changes cannot 
be justly regarded in any other light than as disreputable 
forgeries " The editors of the Breeches Bible, discovering the 
gross contradiction as to Abraham's age, declare that he was 
not Terah's first born, but that he was born when Terah 
was 130 years of age. Usher has put forward the same 
hypothesis. Luke Burke* ably answers this orthodox in- 
vention, which is indeed only an endeavour, entirely unsup- 
ported by evidence, to escape from an otherwise unanswer- 
able difficulty. Colenso says that the text may mean that 
the whole of Terah's three children were born before he 
was seventy.t Josephus distinctly says that Abraham be- 
gat Terah in his 70th year. 

. Yeisd 29. — Sarai.J This is written in Uxe Hebrew text 
(SheEI), and means my princess," and it is rather 
puzzling why God should have in chap, xvii., v. 15, altered 
it to n*^*^ (SheKE) a princess ^' — a distinction almost 
meaningless taken with the context. Dr. Wall urges that 
the Hebrew text has here been corrupted, and that the 
word Sarai was originally written *^*1D (SeEI)— that is, D 
(the letter Samek) instead of O (the letter Shin), Sarai so 
written signifying: emigrant or wanderer. 

Verse 31—" TJr of the Chaldees." Where was Ur, and 
who were the ChaMees? If you are to treat them as iden- 
tical with the Chaldeans of later date in the Bible, how can 
the existence of Chaldeans before Abram be reconciled 
with Isaiah, chap, xxiii., v. 13? — "Behold the land of the 
Chaldeans : this people was not till the Assyrian founded it 
for them that dwell in the wilderness.'' The Hebrew words 
rendered Ur of tl e Chaldees " are, in fact, Aur of the 
Casdim Qntl'^ (Ce Sh DIM) -^^^ (A U E), the word Aur 
or Ur signifies " light " or " fire,"§ and Parkhurst says no 
doubt Ur had its name from the light or fire there wor- 
shipped. The word Ceshdim or Casdim is rendered Chal- 
dees, and we are told that the CL a' deans w^ere inhabitants 
of Babylon ; but, on referring to the book of Daniel we find 
the astrologers or magi were called Chaldeans by the Baby- 

• Ethnological Journal, p. 269. f Tart 4, p. 283. 

X Grounds for a Revision of the Hebrew, pp. 47 and 125 to 131. 

§ Parkhurst's Lexieon, p. 38. GeseniuB, p. 23 and p. 418. 



86 



icnians themselves ; so that Ur of the Chaldees stands also 
for light of the magi" or ^*fire of the magi." Priaulx 
says, " The Chaldees, according to Diodorus Siculus, were 
claimed by the Egyptians as their descendants ; and they 
are spoken of by him not as a race or nation, but as a fiamilj 
or tribe set apart for the worship of the Gods."* 

The name Abram must not be passed by without com- 
ment. It is first written QH^^ (ABEf^M), Ab meaning 
father and Eem high, elevated, exalted. Volneyt argues 
that Abraham never really existed, and seeks to identify 
the father of elevation with the planet Saturn. This, at 
any rate, is not more strange than the declaration in Grala- 
tians, c. iv., v. 25, that the story of Abraham, Hagar, and 
Sarah is an allegory, and that Hagar, the bondwife of 
Abraham, was a mountain. Abba Rama is not more un- 
like Brama than it is like Abraham. Some have sought to 
show that there is more than an accidental resemblance be- 
tween the two names. MauriceJ quotes Hyde and Pos- 
tellus as alleging that Brahma and Abraham were the same. 
Sir William Drummond§ mentions that the Hebrew cha- 
racters composing the word Abraham, the second name of 
the patriarch, DPni^^ (ABEEM), represent the exact num- 
ber of bones in the human body. 

Chap, xii., vv. 1, 2, 3, 7 ; chap, xiii., w. 14 to 17 ; chap. 
XV., w. 5, 14, 18 ; c. xvii., vv. 1 to 8 ; c. xviii., v. 18 ; c. 
xxii., vv. 17, 18; c. xxvi., v. 2; c. xxviii., v. 14. The 
above chapters and verses contain a solemn promise, a 
formal covenant, and, finally, an oath on the part of God 
to Abraham, repeated to Isaac, and renewed to Jacob, that 
the children of the former should be as numerous as the 
stars of heaven or as the dust of the earth, and that this 
prolific ofi'spring should possess the land of Canaan for ever. 
They were to possess certain land from the river of Egypt 
(the Nile) to the Euphrates. Why Abraham and hia race 
should have been selected for this promise in preference to 
all others is not very clear. No great deeds are recorded 
having been performed by Abraham prior to the first pro- 



• Questiones Mosaicae, p. 258. 
t New Eesearches, c. 14. 
X Indian Antiquities, vol. 11., p. 322. 
§ Letters to D'Oyly. 



AUTHOESniP A1S"D AUTHENTICITY. 



37 



mise, nor, so fkr as the Bible tells us, did the descendants of 
Abraham justify the choice hj their subsequent conduct. 
The original promise and the renewals are expressly stated 
to have been made because of Abraham's faith, and they are 
not stated to have been the reward of his morality. If 
Abraham's descendants are the Jews, the promise has 
hitherto been left unperformed. They have not held in 
perpetuity the promised land, nor have they yet become so 
numerous as to render a census impossible. If the promise 
applies to the J ews, history does not record a period when 
they held the whole of Canaan free from war, or hostile 
occupation, or aggression. 

Verse 6. — And Abram passed through the land unto 
the place of Sichem, unto the plain of Moreh. And the 
Canaanite was then in the land/' Kalisch makes plain of 
Moreh" into *^oak of Moreh." Bellamy, to avoid the dif- 
ficulty contained in the last sentence of the verse, follows 
our version to the word Moreh, and then reads for that 
Canaanite was then over the land." The Douay renders 
the verse — Abram passed through the country into the 
place of Sichem, as far as the noble vale ; now the Canaanite 
was at that time in the land." It has been objected by 
Aben Ezra, followed by Spinoza,* that in the words — And 
the Canaanite was then in the land/' the then " " at that 
time " plainly excludes the time when the narrative was 
written ; whereby it is clear that the phrase must have been 
penned after the death of Moses, and when the Canaanites 
bad been driven out and no longer possessed the land. This 
argument goes to the effect either that Moses did not write 
the book, or that the phrase has been interpolated since his 
time. Bellamy's justification of the text, by altering the 
phraseology, is hardly defensible. Aben Ezra, who was afraid 
to say all he thought, observes — There must be a mystery 
concealed in the matter, and he who divines what that is, 
had better keep silence/'t Precisely the same comment 
applies to verse 7 of chap. xiii. 

Verse 11. — It is clear that, although the New Testament 
praises Abraham for his faith in God's promises, that the 
patriarch did not rely on God very much. He feared that 

* Tractatus Theologico Politicus, c, 8. 

t See also Colenso, Part ii., p. 210 j De Wette: Books of Moses, §143. 



88 



CTEITESTS t 



he miglit be killed amongst the Egyptians, because of the 
beauty of his young wife, Sarah (she was not yet seventy 
years of age), and he, therefore, resorts to a falsehood to 
save himself. Commentators say that Abraham did not tell 
a lie in callinoj Sarai his sister, for that she was so, (See 
chap. XX., V. 12.) The only evidence for this is Abraham's 
statement in excuse of his misstatement. On the contrary, 
Josephus says expressly that Abraham married his niece, 
Sarah, as did Nahor his niece Milcah, both Sarah and 
Milcah being the daughters of Haran, who was the brother 
of Abraham and Nahor.* Bellamy and the Douay version 
agree in this ; Bellamy identifying Iscah with Sarah. t If 
Iscah and Sarah be the same, then certainly Sarah was not 
Abraham's sister. The whole story is open to objection on 
account of the repetitions, with slight variations, of the same 
remarkable events on three diiferent occasions. Voltaire 
says — The Q-od of the Jews commanded Abraham to 
go towards Palestine, promising that in his seed all the 
nations of the earth should be blessed. It is for theologians' 
to explain, by allegory and mystical senses how all the 
nations of the earth were to be blessed in a seed from which 
they did not descend, A short time after these promises, 
Abraham's family was afflicted by famine, and went into 
Egypt for corn. It is singular that the Hebrews never went 
into Egypt but when pressed by hunger; Jacob afterwards 
^ent his children on the same errand. 

Abraham, who was then very old, went this way with 
\iis wife Sarah, aged sixty-five ; she was very handsome, and 
A-braham feared that the Egyptians, smitten by her charms, 
would kill him in order to enjoy her transcendent beauties ; 
he proposed to her that she should pass for his sister. Human 
nature must at that time have possessed a vigour which 
time and luxury have since very much weakened. That 
which Abraham had foreseen came to pass ; the Egyptian 
youth found his wife charming, notwithstanding her sixty- 
five years ; the king himself fell in love with her, and placed 
her in his house; but the Lord plac^ued the king and his 
house with very great plagues. The text does not tell us 
how the king came to know that this dangerous beauty was 



* Antiquities, Book I., chap. 6. 
t New Translation, p, ^9* 



I5rs ATTMOBSHIP AM ATTTHENTIClTt. 89 



AbTaham^s wife ; but it seems that he did come to know it, 
and restored her. 

Sarah's beauty must have been unalterable ; for, tyrenty- 
five years afterwards, when she was ninety years old, preg-* 
nant, and travellino: with her husband through the domi' 
nions of a King of Phoenicia, named Abimelech, Abraham, 
who had not yet corrected- himself, made her a second time 
pass for his sister. The Phoenician King was as sensible to 
her attractions as the King of Egypt had been ; but God 
appeared to this Abimelech in a dream, and threatened him 
with death if he touched his new mistress. It must be con- 
fessed that Sarah's conduct was as extraordinary as the 
lasting nature of her charms." 

The conduct of the patriarch, in receiving cattle and 
slaves as a componsat^oa for the violence offered to his wife, 
cannot he said to redound to his credit. His putting his 
wife in danger to save himself, and his afterwards receiving 
a bribe to connive at his wife's dishonour, marks the founder 
of the Jewish race in a unenviable light. Abraham appears 
to have made no effort to rescue his beautiful wife from one 
king, although we find him strong enough and eager enough 
to rescue his brother Lot, when the latter was shortly after 
taken captive by four powerful monarchs. 

Chap, xiii., v. 10. — And Lot lifted up his eyes, and be- 
held all the plain of Jordan, that it was well watered every- 
where, before the Lord destroyed Sodom and Gomorrah, 
even as the garden of the Lord, like the land of Egypt, as 
thou comest unto Zoar." Colenso says^ — This is sup- 
posed to have been written for the instruction in the first 
instance of the Hebrews in the wilderness. But what could 
they have known of the nature of the country in the land of 
Canaa-n, ^ as thou earnest unto Zoar T Or what could Moses 
himself have known of it?'' Colenso 's criticism is open to 
the objection that, even in the time of Moses, the land of 
Egypt, on the road to Zoar, might have been known by re- 
pute without Moses or the Jews of his day being necessarily 
acquainted with Zoar itself. 

Verse 18. — Then Abram. removed his tent, and came and 
dwelt in the pi^-in of Mamre, which is in Hebron, and built 



• Part 11.^ p. 217, 



90 



there an altar unto the Lord."* Objections have been 
raised as to the possibility of the plain of Mamre being 
in the city of Hebron. Kalisch makes it— Oak grove of 
Mamre." Bishop Patrick and Kidder render it — " By the 
oak of Mamre.'' Dr. Giles sajs — "It is evident that, 
though an oak may be in a city, a plain can only be in its 
neighbourhood.'* That which our version makes " a plain," 
the above-named learned and reverend Doctors make an 
oak " or " oak grove and the Douay " a vale." 

Chap, xiii., v. 18; chap, xxiii., vv. 2 and 19 ; chap, xxxv., 
V. 27, &c. These verses, in which Hebron is named, can- 
not be from the pen of Moses, for there was no such place 
as Hebron in his day. Kirjath Arba was not called Hebron 
until given to Caleb, son of Jephunneh, long after the death 
of Moses (vide Joshua, chap, xiv., vv. 14 and 15.) Colon so 
says — It is a mere evasion to say as some have done that 
the city had of old both names." 

Chap, xiv., V. 1. — Amraphel, King of Shinar, is identified 
(by Bellamy, who quotes Onkelos) as the King of Babylon, 
and Chedorlaomer as the King of Persia. It is a matter 
not free from cause of surprise that such powerful 
monarchs should be leagued together in war against the petty 
rulers of five inconsiderable towns. Josephus speaks of 
this simply as a war of the Assyrians against the five petty 
Sodomite Kings : Amraphel, Arioch, Chedorlaomer, and 
Tidal being commanders of the Assyrian forces and not a 
confederacy of independent monarchs. That Abraham, with 
a few hundred men, pursued and defeated the victorious con- 
federates, recapturing the spoil they had taken, is some 
evidence in favour of Josephus's view. This victory of 
Abraham, whether it was over four in lependent and mighty 
kings, or over the Assyrian forces only, is, if true, a very 
wonderful one. It is quite clear that Chedorlaomer was a 
very powerful chieftain, having the inhabitants of the five 
cities of the Jordan district for his vassals. Amraphel is 
represented in the text as the king of the mighty empire of 
Babylon, Shinar being the country wherein Babylon was 
erected, doubtless not so grand as it afterwards became, but 
still one of the most powerful of the then monarchies of the 

* Hebrew Records, p. 130; be Wette: Books of Moses, §148} 
Dr. Cooper; Geology and Pentateuch, p. 25. 



ITS ATTTEOESHIP AND j^UTHENTICITl. 91 



world. These are assisted hy two other kings ; one of whom 
is described as the king of nations. The four allies make 
war upon certain kings, five in number ; and, according to 
verse 10, they fight, and the kings of Sodom and Gomorrah 
fall in the vale of Siddim^ 

Abraham, hearing that Lot, his relative, was taken 
prisoner, took with him three Amorites, Mamre, Eschol, 
and Aner, and their followings, together with three hundred 
and eighteen men born in his own house, and, by night, 
pursued and smote the four allied kings, and recaptured his 
brother. As he went near to Damascus in pursuit, he must 
have travelled more than one hundred miles, beside crossing 
some very mountainous country ; this, of course, enhances 
the character of the victory. One of the fruits of this 
triumph seems to have been, that the King of Sodom, who 
is apparently killed in verse 10, comes to meet Abraham, 
alive and well, in verse 17. 

Josephus says that Abraham fell on his opponents in the 
night, and before they could arm themselves, he slew some 
as they were in their beds before they could suspect any 
harm ; and others who were not yet gone to sleep, but were 
so drunk they could not fight, ran away.^'* 

Chap, xiv., 14 ; Deuteronomy, xxxiv. 1. — The city of Lais, 
Laish, or Leshem, was not called Dan until long after the death 
of Moses, when the Danites possessed themselves of it and 
called it after Dan, their father (vide Joshua, xix. 47, and 
Judges, xviii., 29). Bishop "Watson replying on this point to 
Thomas Paine, says first that the name Dan may be the 
alteration of some later hand. He proceeds,t " But if this 
solution does not please you, I desire it may be proved 
that the Dan mentioned in Grenesis was the same town 
as the Dan mentioned in Judges. I desire further to have 
it proved, that the Dan mentioned in Genesis was the name 
of a town and not of a river. It is merely stated, Abraham 
pursued them, the enemies of Lot, to Dan. Now a river 
was full as likely as a town to stop pursuit. Jordan, we 
know, was composed of the two united streams of Jor and 
Dan.'' Dr. Colenso remarks, That such reasoning, which 



♦ Antiquities, Book I , c. 9. 

t Watson's Apology, Letter 3, p. 205^ 



92 



aEKESia : 



might be allowed to pass in the days of Bishop W^itson^ 
would not be accepted as of any value whatever in our own 
days. The rivers * Jor * and ^ Dan ' are not mentioned 
in the Bible, and their existence is not, I believe, recognised 
in the geography of Palestine/'* Bellamy observes that 
it is not likely that the river Jordan derived its name from 
the union of two smaller rivers called Jor and Dan, because 
the river J*ordan has only one springhead, rising near the 
foot of Mount Lebanon.t 

Verse 18. — Melchizedek; who v/as he? Before answer- 
ing this question, read Psalm ex., 4, Hebrews, v., 6, 10, 
and 11, chap, vii., and chap, viii.^ 1. In the verse we are 

examining, he is described as pHJJ 

—^h'O (MeLeK) Q^t2J (SheLeM.). Melek generally means 
king, but it is also used for the sun or solar fire. Tzedek 
means justice. Skelem sometimes means peaee> sometimes 
" to complete," to finish/' " to perfect.'' J 

What does this mean ? Melekitzedek or Melchizedek ; 
first by interpretation King of Righteousness, and after that 
the King of Salem, which is, the King of Peace ; without 
father, without mother, without d^scent> having neither 
beginning of days, nor end of life — vide Hebrews, chap. vii. 
V.3; 

This description will not apply to any man who ever lived 
on the face of the earth ; nearly everybody claims to have 
had a father and a grandfather : everybody has had a mother. 
Everybody was one hour old before he grew older • and 
after existing some few score years, more or less, every man 
has, sooner or later, died. So Melchizedek could not have 
been a man. In Malachi, chap, iv., v. 2, we find pnSvCDO 
(SheMeShTzeD^Q) ; this is translated Sun of laghteous- 
ness, and it is only to the mythologic representation of the 
sun that the description of Melchizedek will apply. The 
ancients looked upon the sun as the everlasting source of all 
existence, and personified it in vaiious^ names ; Melchizedek^ 
king of the Zodiac, appears to be one tf the Bible personifi- 



♦ Colenso, Part IV., preface, p. 12, and Fart n., p. 201 j but set 
Kalisch: Genesis, p. 358. 
t New Translation, p. 65. 
i rttkhurst's Le&icon, pp. iOl, 610« 742. 



ITS ATTTHOBSHIP AKD AUTHENTICITY, 03 



cations. But supposing Melchizedek to be not a real person, 
what becomes of the story of Abraham giving him tithes of 
his spoils? If this story be not fact, how much is allegory ? 

Is any portion of the history of Abraham a fact ? In 
chap, xvi., we find part of the history of Hagar and Sarai ; 
while, in Gaiatians, chap, iv., w. 24 and 25, we are told that 
the whole history is an allegory, and that Hagar represents 
Mount Sinai in Arabia, and Sarai the City of Jerusalem, 
which is <^ above." 

Melchizedek is called priest of the most high God, the 
words translated most high God " are ^^^^ (AL 
OLITJN). It is not by any means certain that M^lchi- 
zedek's God was the same as Abraham's. The Phoenicians 
called one of their Gods by this very name. Al Oliun 
might as reasonably be translated *^ the high heavens ^' as 

the most high God." The word Al is actually trans- 
lated heaven in the Septuagint — Isaiah, c. xiv., v. 13. The 
Phoenicians called the sun Hel.* 

Genesis, xv. 2.— Our version says, The steward of my 
house is this EKezcr of Damascus," The Douay says, The 
son of the steward of my house is this Damascus Eliezef 
Bellamy reads, <^ The steward is the son of my house, this 
Eliezer of Damascus." Which of these three statements did 
God intend to reveal to humankind ? Can we prefer our 
translators' version to the others, and why ? Our authorised 
text is most certainly wrong in this verse, for it omits the 
Hebrew word translated " son" in the other versions. Abra- 
ham, when speaking of one born in his house as his heir, 
seems to have quite forgotten his brother Lot, who would 
have been his natural heir. 

Verse 8.—** And he said. Lord God whereby shall I know 
that I shall inherit it ?" Abraham's faith, which is so highlj 
praised in the New Testament, does not seem to have been 
very potent. This is at least the fourth time God has com- 
municated with Abraham, who knowing that he is addressing 
God, yet requires something to corroborate God's statement, 
which he must have therefore doubted though coming from 
God direct. 

Verse 11. — Instead of " Abraham drove them away," as in 



* Parkhurst'a Leidcon, pp. 15 and 



94 



GENESIS : 



our version, the Septuagint reads, Abraham sat down by 
them." Bellamy goes further. He not only says that Abraham 
did not drive the fowls away, but denies that he sat down by 
them. In fact, he repudiates the fowls altogether ; for while 
our version reads, verse 11, And when the fowls came 
down upon the carcases, Abraham drove them away,'' 
Bellamy has, Then descended the covering upon the bodies, 
and with them he inspired Abraham." How satisfactory to 
the true believer to know that God's revelation can be so 
contradictorily translated. Whether or not the fowls were 
driven away by Abraham, allidea of infallible inspiration must, 
by such discrepancies, be driven from the mind of the reader. 

Verse 15. — " And thou shalt go to thy fathers in peace ; 
thou shalt be buried in a good old age." Taking the patri- 
archal ages as a guide and standard Abraham died young. 
Shem, Noah's son, Salah, Shem's grandson, and Eber, 
Salah's son, were actually alive when Abraham died, although 
Shem was born nearly 400 years before the birth of Abraham. 
God's promise to Abraham in this respect was certainly not 
kept. Compared with his long-lived ancestors, Abraham died 
at an early period. 

Verse 13. — And he said unto Abraham, Know of a surety 
that thy seed shall be a stranger in a land that is not theirs, and 
shall serve them ; and they shall afflict them four hundred 
years." If this four hundred years refers to the Egyptian 
captivity, it is four hundred and thirty years according to 
Exodus, chap, xii., v. 40 and 41, Now the sojourning of the 
children of Israel, who dwelt in Egypt, was four hundred and 
thirty years. And it came to pass, at the end of four hun-t 
dred and thirty years, even the selfsame day it came to pass, 
that all the hosts of the Lord went out from the land of 
Egypt." (Also see Galatians, chap, iii., 17). But, according 
to the Bible chronology, it is only about two hundred years. 
It is impossible to give credit to one more than the other; 
for Genesis, Exodus, and Chronology, while they contradict 
one another, are not supported by any other evidence them- 
selves. Josephus says, They left Egypt in the month 
Xanthicus, on the 15th day of the lunar month, 430 years 
after our forefather Abraham came into Canaan, and 215 
years after Jacob removed into Egypt."* This contradicts 



* Antiquities, Book 2, chap. xv. 



AUTHOESHIP AM AUTHENTiClir, 



95 



both Genesis and Exodus. Neither Abraham, Isaac, nor 
Jacob can be said to have been servant to or afflicted 
by the Egyptians. 

Verse 17. — And it came to pass, that when the sun went 
down, and it was dark, behold a smoking furnace, and a 
burning lamp that passed between those pieces." This re- 
presentation of a smoking furnace and a burning lamp, serves 
to remind one rather of an Arabian Night's tale than of a 
communication from an infinite Deity. Does the text mean 
that an infinite and immaterial God appeared finite and mate- 
rial as a smoking furnace and a burning lamp ? Bellamy says, 

This translation gives us no information ; we can have no 
conception of the meaning or application of a smoking fur- 
nace and a burning lamp passing between the pieces." 
Clouds, smoke, and fire are more than once connected in the 
Hebrew Eecords with the appearance of Deity. See Exodus, 
xix., 9, 16, 18; xx., 18 ; Deuteronomy, iv., 11 and 12, and 
numerous other passages. So in many of the eastern stories 
the angels and genii use fire and smoke to mark their com- 
ing and going. 

Verses 18 to 21. — In that same day the Lord made a 
covenant with Abraham, saying, Unto thy seed have I given 
this land, from the river of Egypt unto the great river, 
the river Euphrates : the Kenites, and the Kennizzites, and 
the Kadmonites, and the Hittites, and the Perizzites, and 
the Eephaims, and the Amorites, and the Canaanites, and 
the Girgashites, and the Jebusites.'^ Ten nations are speci- 
fied here; in Joshua, chap, iii.,10, seven onlyare mentioned — 
that is, the Kenites, Kennizzites, Kadmonites, and Eephaims 
are omitted ; and the Hivites mentioned, in Deuteronomy, 
chap. XX., 17, and in Exodus, chap, iii., 17, and chap, xxiii., 
23, we find only six, the Girgashites being omitted. The land 
from the Nile to the Euphrates has never yet been in the un- 
disturbed possession of the Jews ; portions of it have never 
been in their possession for a single moment, so that this pro^ 
mise has never been performed. 

Chap. xvi. — And the angel of the Lord found her." 
This is the first time an angel is mentioned in the Bible. 
Angel in Hebrew and Greek signifies envoi/ or messenger. 
The reader will hardly be the wiser for being told that the 
Persians had their peris, the Hebrews their melahim, and the 
Greeks their demonoi. 



96 



GEITESTS : 



But it is, perhaps, better worth knowing that one of the 
first of imperfectly civilized man's ideas has always been to 
place intermediate beings between the Divinity and himself; 
such were those demons, those genii, fairies, and gnomes, in- 
vented in the ages of antiquity by nearly all peoples. Man 
always made the Grods after his own image ; princes were 
seen to communicate their orders by messengers ; therefore, 
the Divinity has also his couriers. The Jews, the only 
people under the conduct of the Divinity himself, did not, at 
first, give names to the angels whom Grod vouchsafed to send 
them; they borrowed the names given them b} the Chaldeans 
when the Jewish nation was captive in Babylon. Michael 
and Gabriel are named for the first time by Daniel, a slave 
among those people. The Jewish Tobit, who lived at Nine- 
veh, knew the angel Raphael, who travelled with his son to 
assist him in recovering the money due to him from the Jew 
Gabael. 

In Leviticus and Deuteronomy, although witches, wizards, 
familiar spirits, and devils are spoken of, not the least men- 
tion is made of the existence of the angels, much less of 
the worship of them ; neither did the Sadducees believe in 
the angels. 

But, in the histories of the Jews, they are much spoken 
of. The angels w^re corporeal; they had wings at tlieir 
backs, as the G-entiles feigned that Mercury had at his heels ; 
sometimes they concealed their wings under their clothing. 
How could they be w^ithout bcfClies, since they all ate and 
drank? 

The ancient Jewish tradition, according to Ben Maimon, 
admits ten degrees, ten orders of angels. 

The Christian religion is founded on the fall of the 
•jigels. Those who revolted were precipitated into hell, and 
jecame devils. A devil, in the form of a serpent, tempted 
Sve, and damned mankind. Jesus came to redeem man- 
kind, and to triumph over the devil, who tempts us still. 
Tet this fundamental tradition is to be found nowhere but 
in the apocryphal book of Enoch ; and there it is in a form 
quite different from that of the received tr:*«iition. 

It is not kno\^'n precisely where the anorels dwell — • 
whether in the air, in the void, or in the planets.* It has not 



♦ Pliilosophical Dictionary. 



ITS AUTHOESHIP AND AUTHENTICITY. 



97 



been God's pleasure that we should be informed of their 
abode. 

The Bible itself gives us very imperfect and contradictory 
information as to the angels whom it mentions. Hagar 
speaks of this angel as though he were God (see v. 13), and 
throughout the Bible instances will be found where the same 
person is spoken of as the angel of God, and as God. 

Verse 12. — Our version says Hagar's son shall be a wild 
man," Kalisch says ^^a wild ass of a man," Bellamy " a 
fruitful man." 

Verse 13. — And shecalled the name of the Lord that spake 
unto her. Thou God seest me : for she said. Have I also here 
looked after him that seeth me ?" In the Douay this is 
translated, And she called the name of the Lord that 
spoke unto her, thou the God who hast seen me ; for she 
said, verily here have I seen the hinder parts of him that 
seeth me." The reader will perceive a strange difference in 
the two texts. If the Douay be the correct translation, 
where are the hinder parts of a God who is without parts ? 
(Vide Thirty-Ninth Article). Kalisch translates the last 
clause of the verse, For she said, Do I even still see [live] 
after seeing [God]." 

Chap. xvii. — And when Abram was ninety years old 
and nine, the Lord appeared to Abram, and said unto him, 
I am the Almighty God ; walk before me, and be thou per- 
fect." As the Lord had previously appeared to, and com- 
municated with Abraham, it is somewhat strange that God 
should find it necessary to tell the patriarch, I am the 
Almighty God." Abraham was certainly no more perfect 
a^ter this injunction than before. It was after this that he 
repeated his falsehood as to his wife, and it was after this 
that he was privy to the ill-treatment of Hagar. 

Verses 10 and 14. — This is my covenant, which ye shall 
keep, between me and you and thy seed after thee ; every 
man child among you shall be circumcised. And the uncir- 
cumcised man child, that soul shall be cut off from his people ; 
he hath broken my covenant." If these verses apply to the 
whole human family, then nearly the whole of the inhabi- 
tants of Europe will be cut off, while the Abyssinians, the 
Kafirs, some of the South Sea and other Islanders, will be 
saved by the mark of the covenant. The following will be 



98 



GENESIS : 



found in the Philosophical DictioDary," under the head 

^ Circumcision — It appears/' says Herodotus in his book 
Euterpe, " that the inhabitants of Colchis sprang from 
Egypt. I judge so from my own observations, rather than 
from hearsay ; for I found that, at Colchis, the ancient 
Egyptians were more frequently recalled to my mind than 
the ancient customs of Colchis were, when I was in 
Egypt. 

^ These inhabitants of the shores of the Euxine sea 
etated themselves to be a colony founded by Sesostris. As 
for myself I should think this probable, not merely because 
they are dark and woolly-haired, but because the inhabitants 
of Colchis, Egypt, and Ethiopia, are the only people in the 
world who, from time immemorial, have practised circum - 
cision ; for the Phoenicians and the people of Palestine con- 
fess that they adopted the practice from the Egyptians. The 
Syrians, who at present inhabit the banks of Thermodon, 
acknowledge that it is, comparatively, but recently that they 
have conformed to it. It is principally from this usage that 
they are considered of Egyptian origin. 

<^ * With respect to Ethiopia and Egypt, as this ceremony 
is of great antiquity in both nations I cannot by any means 
ascertain which has derived it from the other. It is, how- 
ever, probable that the Ethiopians received it from the 
Egyptians; while, on the contrary, the Phoenicians have 
abolished the practice of circumcising new-born children 
since the enlargement of their commerce with the Creeks.' 

From this passage of Herodotus, it is evident that many 
people had adopted circumcision ; but no nation ever pre- 
tended to have received it from the Jews. To whom, then, 
can we attribute the origin of this custom ? to a nation from 
whom five or six others acknowledge they took it, or to 
another nation, much less powerful, less commercial, less 
warlike, hid away in a corner of Arabia Petrsea, and which 
never communicated any one of its usages to any other 
people ? 

The Jews admit that they were, many ages since, re- 
ceived in Egypt out of charity. Is it not probable that the 
lesser people imitated a usage of the superior one, and that 
the Jews adopted some customs from their masters ? 

Clement Alexandria relates that Pythagoras, when 



ITS AUTHOESHIP AKD ATJTHENTICITT. 



99 



travelling among the Egyptians, was obliged to be circum- 
cised in order to be admitted to their mysteries. It was, 
therefore, absolutely necessary to be circumcised to be a 
priest in Egypt. Those priests existed when Joseph arrived 
in Egypt. The government was of great antiquity, and the 
ancient ceremonies of the country were observed with the 
most scrupulous exactness. (Joseph was married into the 
family of the Priest of the Sun before his relations had es- 
tablished any religious system.) 

The Jews acknowledge that they remained in Egypt two 
hundred and five years (the Bible says four hundred and 
thirty.) They say that, during that period, they did not 
become circumcised. It is clear, then, that for two hundred 
and five years the Egyptians did not receive circumcision 
from the Jews. Would they have adopted it from them aftep 
the Jews had stolen the vessels which they had lent them, 
and, according to their own account, fied with their plunder 
into the wilderness ? Will a master adopt the principal 
symbol of the religion of a robbing and runaway slave ? b 
is not in human nature. 

It is stated in the book of Joshua that the J ews were 
circumcised in the wilderness. ' I have delivered you from 
what constituted your reproach among the Egyptians.' But 
what could this reproach be to a people living between 
Phoenicians, Arabians, and Egyptians, but something which 
rendered them contemptible to these three nations?" 

Kalisch says, The question arises, what was the origin 
of this singular custom ? It mus'j evidently have a general 
cause, inherent either in the human mind or in the human 
frame, since it was in use amongst .^o many different nations 
possessing no mutual intercourse. Now a religious motive 
seems to be out of the question, for some of the nations 
alluded to are not only strangers to all religious ceremonies 
but destitute of all moral feelings.'^* Kalisch argues for a 
physical reason, but in this case the whole story of the in- 
stitution of the covenant of circumcision by Q-od with 
Abraham is reduced to fable. 

Verse 17. — ^^Then Abraham fell upon his face, and laughed, 
and said in his heart, Shall a child be bom unto him that \a 



* Genesis, p. 



100 



GENESIS : 



an hundred years old ? and shall Sarah, that is ninety years 
old, bear ?" This is not only an illustration of Abraham's 
want of faith in God's promise, but it also shows either that 
he did not know, or did not believe, that Shem had a son when 
130 years old, or that Noah had children when 500 years 
old, or that Jared when 162 years of age begat Enoch, or 
that Methusaleh was 187 at Lamech's birth. If Abraham 
did not believe this in Shem's lifetime, why should greater 
faith be expected from us so many centuries after ? 

Genesis, chap, xviii. — The attentive reader of this chapter 
cannot fail to observe the extraordinary confusion in the 
text, as to the three men and the Lord. It is difficult to 
discover whether the Lord was one of the three visithig 
Abraham, or all of the three, or separate from the three. 
Kalisch tries to argue that God who, according to the Bible, 
is invisible, appeared to Abraham, who at the same time saw 
three figures in human form ; and Kalisch separates the three 
men from God, saying that the three, who were not simply 
mortals, sat down to food, while the spirit of God hovered 
among the assembly. If not mortals, it is difficult to ima- 
gine their eating and drinking Abraham's calf, milk, butter, 
and cakes, and in truth Kalisch has no authority in the text 
for his hypothesis. The Douay version in a note says, that 
of the three one represented the Lord," the other two 
being the angels who went on to Sodom. This hypothesis 
does not contradict the text, but is certainly not explicitly 
vouched by it. Josephus* says that the three declared 
that they were angels of God ; and that one of them was 
sent to inform them about the child, and two for the over- 
throw of Sodom." Josephus certainly could not have learned 
this from the book of Genesis, as we have it. Bellamy says, 
Many writers have thought that God appeared to Abraham 
in three distinct forms, and that these represented the three 
persons of the trinity ; others that they were three angels, 
because after it is said ' the Lord appeared unto him it is 
also said in the next verse, that * he lift up his eyes, and 
looked, and lo, three men stood by him.' Were this the 
case, that these persons were Jehovah, or that they were 
three angels, was there any necessity for Abraham, when 
he knew the quality of his guests, to show them the way by 



♦ Antiquities, chap. 11, 52. 



ITS AUTHOESHIP AND ATTTHENTICITT. 



101 



going with them as a guide ? for we read (verse 16), * Abra- 
ham went with them to bring them on the way.' Can it be 
supposed that heavenly beings, and even God himself, re- 
quired a guide 

Verse 2.—" And he lift up his eyes, and looked, and lo, 
three men stood by him : and, when he saw them, he ran 
to meet them." Bellamy observes that if the three men 
stood by Abraham, he could have hardly run to meet them. 
In verse 3, after having seen three persons, Abraham goes 
on to speak to them as if they were but one, and in verse 4, 
without any break, he speaks as if to more than one. In 
verse 9, " they '' speak to Abraham, and verse 10, without 
any break in the conversation, he " speaks to Abraham. 
Who is meant by he " the text does not explain, and if it 
were not that the speech is addressed to the patriarch, he " 
would grammatically be Abraham himself. 

Verses 11 to 15. — ^'Now Abraham and Sarah were old, 
and well stricken in age ; and it ceased to be with Sarah 
after the manner of women. Therefore Sarah laughed 
within herself, saying, After I am waxed old shall I have 
pleasure, my lord being old also? And the Lord said unto 
Abraham, Wherefore did Sarah laugh, saying, Shall I of a 
surety bear a child, which am old ? Is any thing too hard 
for the Lord ? At the time appointed I will return unto 
thee, according to the time of life, and Sarah shall have 
a son. Then Sarah denied, saying, I laughed not : 
for she was afraid. And he said. Nay ; but thou didst 
laugh." Sarah in Hebrews, c. xi., vv. 11 and 12, is noticed 
for her faith in relation to this matter ; but unless the writer 
of the epistle had a different copy of Genesis, Sarah's faith 
is surely of a doubtful character. There is more of mockery 
and laughter (at what she regarded as the idle promise and 
impossible boast on the part of the Lord), coupled with a 
fear of punishment for the avowal of disbelief, than there is 
of faith. One orthodox commentator says that " Sarah, who 
considered herself as past the age of child-bearing, either 
treated the promise with unbecoming levity, or was so 
delighted with the prospect of having a son, that she was 
thrown into an ecstasy, which discovered itself by a burst of 
laughter. Let us hope, for her credit sake j that the latter 



* New Irarislation, p, 75, 



102 



GENESIS : 



was the case.'** Abraham makes a difficulty, and Sarah 
laughs because at their advanced age Q-od had promised a 
child ; but they ought both to have known that some of 
their ancestors had had children at a much greater age, and 
the writer of the text, who speaks of them as very old people, 
must have been well aware that Abraham was a mere youth 
compared with the great majority of his ancestors. God 
himself, when Sarah laughed because of the absurdity of her 
having a child at that great age (instead of reminding her 
that Adam and Eve were 180 when Seth was born, that 
Seth was 105 when Enos was born, that Jared was 165 when 
Enoch was born, and Methusaleh 187 when he begat 
Lamech), speaks as though the promised event, though a 
wonderful one, would be achieved by special divine interpo- 
sition, and God in nowise treats it as a natural event which, 
having occurred before, might not unreasonably be expected 
to occur again. 

Verses 20 and 21. — '*And the Lord said, because the 
cry of Sodom and Gomorrah is great, and because their sin is 
very grievous, I will go down now, and see whether they 
have done altogether according to the cry of it, which is 
come unto me ; and if not, I will know." According to 
these verses God, the omnipresent, being away from Sodom 
and Gomorrah, had received a report of the evil doings of 
the people of those cities, and the Bible in effect declares 
that he, God, being omniscient, but not knowing whether 
the actual state of things had been correctly represented to 
him, had determined to go down to Sodom (from which city 
the omnipresent could never have been absent) personally 
to find out the truth. The chaffering and bargaining be- 
tween God wavering and undetermined and Abraham persis- 
tently petitioning as to the salvation of Sodom, has in it 
something so contemptibly ridiculous that one is puzzled 
to conceive how any large number of the human family could 
believe the narrative inspired by the infinite God. Either God 
knew that there were not so many righteous persons as fifty, 
forty-five, forty, thirty, twenty, or ten in Sodom, in which 
case all his promises were deceptive, or God did not know, 
in which case he is not omniscient. 

Verse 22. — This verse is one of those eighteen altered 



* Joaes ; Biblical Cyclopaedia, yoL !• 



igra AnTfloRSHip aj^b authenticity. 



103 



ftctx^dir^ to the decrees of the Scrife>os. Originally it was 
DrnnH "^^Zb nS^y ^^^nW mn^V-"And Jehovah still 
stood before Abraham but Tikun Sopherim (the decrees 
of the Scribes) have substituted our present reading : 

mn'^ nay ^TH^ Dmn«1— ^^And Abraham 

Btill stood before Jehovah ; " because it appeared offensive 
to say that the Deity stood before Abraham.* 

Verse 33. — And the Lord went his way, as soon as he 
had left communing with Abraham : and Abraham returned 
unto his place.'' Bellamy says, " This is a very undignified 
and awkward expression when applied to God. The Lord, 
who is always everywhere, went one way, and Abraham 
went another. This style of writing (which makes God, who 
is alleged to be infinite and immaterial, finite, and subject 
to material conditions ; subject to order of time and space, 
having a material body, and eating material food) ought to 
be enough without further comment to destroy the present 
faith and to prevent further belief in the infallible inspiration 
of these Hebrew legends.'* 

Chap. xix. — " And there came two angels to Sodom.'* 
This would leave it doubtful whether or not these were the 
same as the angels of the former chapter. But Kalisch 
translates it — And two of the angels came to Sodom," and 
the Douay says — ^^And the two angels came to Sodom.'' 
The angels then were so much like men that they ate, 
drank, washed their feet, rested under a tree, walked, talked, 
and were clearly bodily visible to Abraham, to Lot, and to 
the people of Sodom. Dr. John Pye Smith says that the 
angel who remained with Abraham in chap, xviii., has all 
the predicates of Deity, and he identifies as the same the 
one introduced in c. xix., vv. 17 to 25 ; and by drawing atten- 
tion to the remarkable repetition of the word Jeue (Jehovah) 
in verse 24, Dr. Pye Smith revives the point as to the one God 
Jeue on earth, calling down brimstone and fire from another 
God Jeue in heaven. t PriaulxJ says— *^ Unless this be 
some Hebrew idiom, one would suppose the Lord raining, 
and the Lord in heaven were difierent persons." According 
to verses 8 and 30, Lot appears to have had two daughters 



• Jacob Ben Chajim^s Introduction, p. 28. 

t Chrisuan Theology, 249, i Questiones Mosaicee, 39S. 



104 



GENESIS : 



only, and these unmarried, and yet verse 14 speaks of the 
sons-in-law which married his daughters. Some trans- 
lators allege that it should read who w^ere about to marry 
his daughters." 

Verse 26. — *^But his wife looked back from behind him, 
and she became a pillar of salt." Josephus says that this 
pillar of salt was standing in his day, and adds — Eor I 
have seen it."* Professor Whiston, in a note to the trans- 
lation, states that the existence of the pillar of salt is also 
attested by Clement of Eome and by IrensDus. Bellamy 
denies that there is any ground for believing in the conver- 
sion of Lot's wife, observingt — Had she been turned into 
salt, it would have required a perpetual miracle to have 
preserved this monument : for salt, whether alkaline, neu- 
tral, or acid is soluble by water, and, therefore, it could not 
have remained long in the form of a pillar, to convince pos- 
terity, as many weak people have supposed, that she was 
punished for her disobedience. Commentators of this des- 
cription have done more injury to the religion of the Bible 
than all the Atheists and Deists in the world, though they 
have interlarded their comments on this subject with the 
monkish interpolation of Josephus, who is made to say 
that the pillar of salt was in existence in his day. I say 
monkish interpolation for, at this early period, additions, 
alterations, and explanations were foisted into the transla- 
tions to suit the craft and policy of designing men. Cer- 
tainly, a moment's consideration will convince any man, 
that a pillar of any species of salt could not have continued 
visible nearly 2000 years from Abraham to the time of 
Josephus." And it might be added that, as neither ancient 
nor modern travellers, before or since that Jewish writer, 
have satisfactorily vouched its existence, it would require 
some strong evidence to identify Josephus's pillar of salt with 
Lot's unfortunate wife. I conclude this subject with an 
extract from orthodox sources^ — Irenseus and TertuUian 
say it was standing about a d., 200. Benjamin of Tudela, 
the Jewish traveller, avers that it was standing near one 
thousand years after, which would make its duration about 



♦ Antiquities, chap. 11, sec. 4. f New 1 rauslatioiia p. 83, 
X Jones : Biblical Cyclopaedia, vol. a 



ITS AUTHOBSHTP AKD AUTHENTTCITT, IT'S 

8000 years. Some modern travellers pretend to have seen 
it ; but their rehitions savour so strongly of fable, and d.ffer 
60 wide'y, that we cannot credit them. It is certain that 
Maunder, Shaw, and other travellers of veracity do not pre- 
tend that there are now the least remains of this noted 
statue.*' There is in truth no evidence to identify the site 
of the asphalt waters of the Dead Sea with the place whereon 
stood the fire- destroyed city of Sodom. 

It is impossible to imagine a story more fearfully horrible 
than that of this chapter, and it is hardly possible to con- 
ceive it to be a representation of facts. That the whole of 
the male inhabitants of a city should crowd round a house, 
as alleged in verses 4 and 5, is so monstrously unnatural that 
reason revolts against it. That this crowd, when smitten 
suddenly with utter blindness, should continue to endea- 
vour to carry out their former design, is utterly incredible. 
The preservation ot such a disgusting record for the edi- • 
fication of our children is worthy the system which sup- 
ports this most moral book. Lot's lingering and reluctance 
to quit the city is inexplicable, and that God should pardon 
a little city, so that it might serve as Lot's shelter, because 
Lot objected to journey to the mountain, is also a most un- 
reasonable statement. Either the inhabitants of Zoar were 
equally guilty with those of the other cities of the plain, in 
which case the same doom should, in justice, have fallen 
on them, or else the dwellers in Zoar were innocent, in 
which case it was not true, as pretended by the text, that 
God spared the little city on Lot's petition, in order that it 
might serve as his shelter. Priaulx says* — As one of the 
objects of the tale is to illustrate by an example the wicked- 
ness of Sodom, I naturally conclude that the conduct it 
attributes to the Sodomians was not the effect of some 
sudden and unaccountable frenzy, but something habitual ; 
and I cannot help asking how Lot could voluntarily fix his 
residence among, and afterwards contract family alliances 
with so lawless and so vicious a people ? and how was it 
that, knowing their character, he did not warn away the 
strangers from the dangers of the loathsome city?'' The 
concluding incidents of the nineteenth chapter are as in- 
famously foul, and as utterly incredible as are the features 



* Questiones Mosaicae, 397. 



106 



displayed in the earlier verses. No moral lesson is even 
conveyed by the terrible destruction of all the cities of the 
plain, for it is impossible to forget that God (who deluged 
the earth to wash away the stains of its sin, saving only 
one righteous man and his family) might have prevented 
instead of punishing the crime : nor does the preservation 
of Lot and his daughters from the destroying fire in any- 
way result in any improvement of their moral condition. 
They who saw the burning cities, seem utterly unafiected 
thereby. It is but just to remark that Bellamy makes a 
most ineffectual but praiseworthy attempt to purify this 
chapter by attributing its foulness to an improper transla- 
tion of the Hebrew text. He says, after exposing many 
blunders in the text — Some may ask how could the Jews 
be deceived as to their language ? Would they not have 
detected these errors? I would observe that the Jews have 
no advantage above the Christians in acquiring a knowledge 
of the language ; had they, surely before this day it would 
have been shown that all those palpable contradictions and 
inconsistencies which disgrace the translations, are not to 
be found in the original. But, indeed, the far greater part 
of the Jews in all nations, though they pronounce the 
Hebrew or read the Hebrew Bible, yet they know not the 
meaning ; and are obliged to gain their knowledge of the 
original from the national translations." This very much 
accords with the opinion of Spinoza quoted in pages 4 and 5 
of the present volume. 

Chap. XX. — On pages 87 to 89, attention has already been 
called to the story of Abraham's second falsehood in refe- 
rence to Sarah. The first account was extremely incredible ; 
the repetition is monstrously absurd. Sarah ninety years 
of age, by her own admission is now an old woman, and yet 
the text represents her as so charming that Abimelech sends 
and takes her from her husband. Newman, in his Phases 
of i^'aith," asks, " What was I to make of God's anger with 
Abimelech, whose sole offence was the having believed Abra- 
ham's lie ? for which a miraculous barrenness was sent on 
all the females of Abimelech's tribe, and was bought off only 
by splendid presents to the favoured deceiver." According 
to verse 6, Abimelech was not free and responsible. Gtod 



ITS AUTHOESHIP AND AtTTHENTICITT. 



107 



knew Abimelech to be a good man, and withheld him from 
sinning, so that the punishment was for an offence not 
committed, unless the sending for Sarah was an offence, 
w^hen the text shows that God permitted it, and God's pro- 
phet Abraham originated it by his voluntary falsehood ; and 
why punish others for Abimelech's offence (if offence was 
really committed) ? If God withheld Abimelech from com- 
mitting sin, why is he not as merciful to every one ? It 
would surely be more Godlike to prevent sin than to punish 
the sinner. 

Verse 5. — Said he not unto me. She is my sister ? and 
she, even she herself said, He is my brother,*' Dr. Kenni- 
cott,* quoting the Hebrew, says — **In these twelve (Hebrew) 
words, we find the pronoun of the third person five times j 
twice properly he, and three times originally she ; but, in 
the printed editions, two of the feminine pronouns have 
been most absurdly changed into masculine. So that the 
preceding words, if closely, or rather if truly translated, 
contain the following expostulation of Abimelech on account 
of Sarah — ^ Said he not unto me, he is my sister ? and s?ie, 
even he said, he is my brother.' And is this the boasted 
integrity of Jewish transcribers ?" It is evident by this 
verse that both Sarah and Abraham, with a knowledge of the 
consequences of Abraham's former similar falsehoods, must 
have both personally misrepresented their relationship to 
Abimelech. 

Verse 16. — "And unto Sarah he said, Behold, I have 
given thy brother a thousand pieces of silver : behold, he ia 
to thee a covering of the eyes, unto all that are with thee, 
and with all other: thus she reproved.'' Bellamy makes the 
last four words — " Thus she was justified,'^ KaKsch ren- 
ders them — " And thou wilt be recognised.'^ The Douay 
gives — And remember thou wast taken." Priaulxf quotes 
Boothroyd as rendering the verse — I have given thy 
brother 1000 pieces of silver to purchase veils for thee, and 
all that are with thee." Michaelis : I have placed with 
thy brother 1000 shekels of silver, with it buy thee a veil. 



♦ Wall's Grounds for Revision, 222. 
t Questiones, 412. 



108 



GENESIS : 



and wear it everywhere, so that every man may know thou 
art married/' De ,Wette : " I have given thy brother 1000 
shekels of silver, \nth it buy thee a veiJ, and wear it before 
all that are with thee, and before all other, so that thou 
mayest be distinguished.'' The Vulgate* reads—** Sarae 
autem dixit: Ecce ! mille argenteos dedi fratri tuo, hoc eri 
tibi in velamen oculorum ad umnes, qui tecum sunt, et quo- 
cumque perrexeris ; mementoque te deprehensam." 

Verses 17 and 18. — As all the events recorded here took 
place after the Lord's promise to Abraham ; chap, xvii., v. 21, 
and after the visit at Mamre, and after the destruction of 
Sodom, and yet before Sarah's state betokened her to be 
a wife, they must have occupied at most but a few weeks ; 
how, then, did Abimelech or Abraham know that the Lord 
had afflicted Abimelech's wives with barrenness ? 

Chap, xxi., V. 9. — And Sarah saw the son of Hagar the 
Egyptian, which she had born unto Abraham, mocking." 
The Douay says — ^' And when Sarah had seen the son of 
Hagar, the Egyptian, playing with Isaac, her son," and, in 
this, it follows and agrees with the Septuagint version. 
Which is also corroborated by the Vulgate—** Cumque 
vidisset Sara filium Agar Aegyptiae Indent em cum Isaao 
filio suo." Which version is right ? has the Hebrew been 
corrupted in order to afford some justification for Ishmael's 
expulsion ? If yes, how much of the text has been similarly 
dealt with ? It is hardly probable that the translators into 
the Grreek or Latin have turned the mocking " into harm- 
less play. All orthodoxy would seek to substantiate Sarah'i 
justification, not to lessen it. 

Verse 12. — ** And God said unto Abraham, let it not be 
grievous in thy sight because of the lad, and because of thy 
bondwoman ; in all that Sarah hath said unto thee, hearken 
unto her voice." Priaulx saysf — Michaelis thinks that 
this counsel of the Deity sounds somewhat harshly ; but he 
afterwards consoles himself with the reflection that it is more 
in accord with our views of marriage than those which ob- 
tained in the time of Abraham. To my poor judgment, 

* Hahnii Bii>lia Heb. cum Vulgata* 21. 
t Questiones, 433, 



ITS AUTHORSHIP AND ATJTHENTICITT. 



109 



however, it seems that every man, married or not, who in 
our day seduces a woman, by that very act engages himself 
in certain duties towards her : he is bound, for instance, to 
save her from the penis of starvation, prostitution, &c., and, 
though he may, I care not for what reasons, have withdrawn 
from her society, his duties he is ever bound earnestly to 
fulfil. To us, therefore, the conduct of Abraham is, to say 
the least of it, cruel and unjustifiable. And when we re- 
member that both in her own eyes and in the eyes of those 
among whom she lived, Hagar was innocent of all crime : 
that she had shared Abraham's bed at Sarah's instigation 
and for Sarah's sake : then Abraham's conduct appears 
criminal indeed. Abraham has large possessions of sheep, 
oxen, servants, and camels, and yet he spares not a solitary 
beast of burden to sustain his wife and child, no servant to 
guide or help them, no tent to shelter them. Out of his 
great wealth, twice increased by large gifts resulting from 
most questionable conduct, the prophet of God gives his 
wife bread and a bottle of water," and then sends her into 
the wilderness to die. Verse 15. — She cast the child 
under one of the shrubs." The child Ishmael was be- 
tween 13 and 16 years of age ; did the writer forget this ? 

Verses 30 and 31. — In chap, xxvi., vv. 25, 32, and 33, we 
are told that it was not Abraham, but the servants of Isaac, 
who digged the well; and that it was not Abraham, but 
Isaac who called the name of the place Beersheba. Which 
is correct, or were there two Beershebas ? In both cases 
Abimelech and Phichol are parties to the oath. Did they 
repeat with Isaac the covenant with Abraham, or are some of 
the incidents in Isaac's life but copied from that of Abraham?* 
The thirty-third verse reads, Therefore the name of the 
city is Beersheba unto this day." The Eev. Dr. Q-iles adds : 
" It is sufficient to remark that no city of Beersheba existed 
in the time of Moses ; consequently the book in which it is 
found could not have been written by Moses or any of his 
contemporaries." 

Chap. xxii. — God did tempt Abraham." James, chap. 1, 
verse 13 : Let no man say when he is tempted, I am 



• Kalisch: Genesis, 441; Hebrew Records, 135. 



110 



l&EKESIS : 



tempted of God ; for God cannot be tempted with evil, nei- 
ther temptetb he any man." Bellamy, commenting on this 
chapter, says : This is one of the most unaccountable 
things in sacred history as it stands in the vulgar versions," 
Ancient and modern objectors have said: " Is it possible to 
suppose that the Supreme Being, who knows what is in 
man, would require him to give a proof of his faith and 
obedience by murdering his only son, and this in direct op- 
position to his commands under that dispensation Bellamy 
urges that the translation is entirely wrong. <* But," he 
observes, the intelligent reader will naturally ask the 
question : If the translation be wrong, why has this error 
been retained for so many ages ? The reason is obvious. 
The first Christian translation was made in Greek by Sym- 
machus, and 200 years afterwards Jerome, who could not 
read Hebrew without the assistance of a Jew, with whose 
help he compared his translation with the original, was the 
first who attempted to give a translation from Hebrew into 
Latin ; or rather who revised the old Vulgate then in use, 
which was a mixture from the Greek, the present Vulgate 
being only a mixture ex-Hieronymi, veteris Vulgat<B et 
Theodotionis editionibus. To this the Council of Trent 
have affixed their seal of infallibility. And though it haa 
so many marks of human infirmity, and scarce a page that 
does not betray the ignorance of the compiler, yet it is with 
them sacred and canonical, the authentic scripture. From 
this translation all the European translations have been 
made ; and thus all the errors we find in every page of the 
authorised version have had their origin from tlus contami- 
nated fountain, the Latin Vulgate, which the Council of 
Trent, in order to cover their ignorance of Hebrew, have 
declared to be infallible." 

Many competent critics are of opinion that the Hebrew 
text itself is as unreliable as the Latin Vulgate, 

Francis William Newman* says : " A man who, in obe- 
dience to a voice in the air, kills his innocent wife or child, 
will be either called mad, or shut up for safety, or will be 
hanged as a desperate fanatic : do I dare to condemn this 



* Phases of Faitli« 91. 



ITS AUTHOllS^niP Am> AUTHENTICITY. Ill 

modem judgment ot him ? No outward impressions on the 
eye or ear can be so valid an assurance to me of God's will 
as my inward judgment. How amazing, then, that a Paul 
or a James could look on Abraham's intention to s]ay his 
eon as exhibiting a praiseworthy faith." Paul and James 
agree in extolling Abraham as the pattern of faith ; James 
and the author of the epistle to the Hebrews specify the 
sacrifice of Isaac as a first-rate fruit of faith ; yet, if the 
voice of morality is allowed to be heard, Abraham was (in 
heart and intention) not less guilty than those who sacrificed 
their children to Moloch. 

Voltaire remarks : " It seems astonishing that God, after 
causing Isaac to be born of a centenary father and a woman 
of ninety-five, should afterwards have ordered that father to 
murder the son whom he had given him, contrary to every 
expectation. This strange order from God serves to show 
that, at the time when this history was written, the sacrifice 
of human victims was customary amongst the Jews, as it 
afterwards became in other nations, as witness the vow of 
Jephtha.*' 

Verse 2. — In the Douay, Abraham is told to go " into 
the land of vision in this the Vulgate in ferram visionis'* 
is followed ; in our version *^ into the land of Moriah.'' The 
Septuagint version does not agree with either, but reads 
eis ten gen ten upselen — " to the high land." Symmachus 
agrees with the Vulgate. The version of Aquila difiers 
from all the others.* And Abraham said unto his young 
men, abide ye here with the ass ; and I and the lad will go 
yonder and worship, and come again to you." If Abraham 
believed that he was really about to ofier Isaac, then he was 
lying to his young men. If he believed that Isaac would 
return, then the whole story of God's command must be 
untrue. 

Chap, xxii., v. 12. — If this verse be taken to mean that God 
knew Abraham to be godfearing because he did not with- 
hold his son, then it would appear that until this test the 
AU-wise was uncertain as to the patriarch's piety. 

Verse 14. — And Abraham called the name of that place 



♦ Kalisch: Genesis, 446; Colenso, part 2, 246. 



112 



GENESIS : 



Jehovah-jireh : as it is said to this day, In the mount of the 
Lord it shall be seen." Aben Ezra observes that the title, 
" Mount of the Lord," was not given to Mount Moriah until 
after the building of the Temple.* This would be conclusive 
against Moses as the writer of this phrase. The LXX. 
translate the last sentence en to orei Kyrios ophthe — In 
the mount the Lord was seen." The Douay reads, " In 
the mountain the Lord will see." Abraham calls the name 
of the place Jehovah -jireh, yet in Exodus c. vi. v. 3, we read, 
"And I appeared unto Abraham, unto Isaac, and unto 
Jacob, by the name of God Almighty, but by my name 
JEHOVAH was I not known to them." If the name of 
Jehovah was not known to Abraham, how came he to use 
it?t Jacob likewise uses the name Jehovah (see Genesis, 
chap, xxviii., 13 and 21, and chap, xxxii. 9 ) ; although if 
God's speech be correct, neither Abraham nor Jacob knew 
it. As it is evident that if Abraham and Jacob used the 
name Jehovah they must have been acquainted with it, one 
of three theories must be adopted — either that the account 
in Genesis is untrue, or that the all-wise God had forgotten 
that Abraham and Jacob were acquainted with the name, or 
that his words are misstated in Exodus. Either supposition 
is fatal to the Bible. The word anglicised as Jehovah is 
JEUE. The word itself is derived from the Hebrew 
verb " to be," and doubtless was intended to express ex- 
istence past, present, and future.^ Godfrey Higgins§ 
quotes Archbishop Usher in confirmation of this rendering 
«f the word, which he says, in chap, v., sec. 37, is so ab- 
surdly written Jehovah." *^ A Mr. Davis, who was em- 
ployed by the bishop to procure MSS. for him in the East, 
learned from the Samaritans th;it their nation pronounced 
the word Jehueh in Hebrew i — Tl!"!^ J e u e. This must 
be J as i in pine, e as a in ale, u as in hume or in use." In 



♦ Spinoza: Tractatus Theologico-Politicus, cap. 8. 
t Colenso: Part ii., pp. 240, 250, and 259. 

X See, however, the lexicon of Geseuius, p. 337; Parkhurst, p. 155; 
Bresslau, p. 230; Newman, p. 23o; Eichhorn's Simonis, p. 681; 
Buxtorf, p. 177, pars. 91 to 96, this last giving valuable references to 
RabbinicpJ -" Htings. 

§ Cel' 's, p. 25, chap, i., sec 21 



ITS AtrTHO-RSHIP ATTD ATTTHENTICITT. 113 



the historic work of Diodorus Siculus (lib. i., §94) the 
name of the Grod of the Jews is written law, showing that 
the four-lettered name niH^ had been read as Tahoh. In 
a fragment of Philo Bybiius, preserved in ' Praeparatio 
Evangelica ' of Eusebius (lib. i. cap. 9) the same name is 
transcribsd levw, which accords with the reading of the ori- 
ginal group, as Yehuho. Clement of Alexandria gave in 
his Stromata (lib. v. §6) as the transcript of the four-lettered 
mystic name laov, corresponding with the reading thereof 
Tflhuh. His pupil Origen transcribed this name in two 
different ways — law, corresponding with Yehoah (or Joh), 
and l(x)a with Yahoh.* The name in question was trans- 
scribed by Macrobius (in his Saturnalia, lib. i. cap. 18) law, 
by Jerome, Jao, in his book ^ De Interpretatione Js'ominem,' 
and Jaho in the commencement ot his commentary on the 
eighth Psalm, all of which agree with Yahoh. Epiphanius, 
in the tenth section of his treatise against the Gnostics, 
states law ^ as the name given by those heretics to the Euler 
in the highest heaven and in the fifth section of his 
treatise against the Archontics includes lajSe as one of the 
names of the true Grod [the b and v being exchangeable] — 
this makes Yahveh. This last transcript (Ia/3£) Theodoret 
informs us accorded with the Samaritan pronunciation of 
the four-lettered name, while he transcribes the Jewish 
pronunciation Aia.f Ata is obviously the transcript not 
of Tl^'^^ but of the substantive verb Tl^Tl (EJE) Hayah, 
of which this inflexion signifies ^ he vras/ or ^ he has 
been.' Besides the above diverse pronunciations of 
another has been transmitted to us. In MS. copies 
of the Septuagint no longer extant, pipi is recorded to have 
been written instead of Kyrios, to represent the four-lettered 
name. The word Adonai is substituted in the Douay for 
Jehovah, which the Jews (says a foot note) never pro- 
nounce, but instead of it, whenever it occurs in the Bible, 
they read Adonai, and therefore they put the points which 

* Joh, in the Coptic, means Moon. The name Isis is either derived 
from it, or it from the name Isis. (See Sharpens Egypt, pp. 128 and 
135.) See also as to Jah, the " Pentateuch Controversy," by Pres- 
byter Anglicanus, pp 118 and 119; and Taylor's "Diegesis,'' c. 22. 

t Grounds for Revision, Dp. 200, 213, etc. ; Gesenius* Lexicon, 337. 



114 



GENESIS : 



belong to the name Adonai to the four letters lod, He, 
Vau, He. Hence some moderns have framed the name 
Jehovah unknown to all the ancients, whether Jews or 
Christians, for the true pronunciation of the name, which is 
in the Hebrew text, by long disuse is now quite lost.*' 
Origen expressly says that the four-letter name was unutter- 
able amongst the Jews. Q-esenius at one time regarded the 
word rr^n** as perhaps of the same origin as Jovi^ Jwpiter, 
and transferred from the Egyptians to the Hebrews. Park- 
hurst* quotes Varro as identifying Jove, Jovis pater, and 
Jupiter with the four-lettered name. Cahenf speaks of 
n*in^ as a tetragrammatic name, composed of n*^n it was," 
TV\71 it is," il'^n^ " it will be," and he always translates 
lEUE as I'Eternel." 

The Eev. Mr. Etheridge says that the reverence with 
which the name Jehovah has been regarded for many cen- 
turies, and its consequent disuse as a spoken word, has 
been followed by the absolute loss of its true pronunciation. 
It was thought that the pronouncing the name was blas- 
phemy.I " When the high priest pronounced it in the service 
of the day of Atonement, the people fell prostrate on the 
ground. After the time of the high priest Shimeon Hazad- 
dik, it ceased to be spoken. It was last heard in the temple 
from his mouth. Henceforward whoever should attempt 
to pronounce it was to have no part in the world to come. 
The consequence has been an utter oblivion of the orthoepy 
of the name, not only in its oral sound, but in its grammati- 
cal vocalisation. The four antique consonants remain, but 
the peculiar nature of the Hebrew language will greatly 
modify the signification." 

Layard in deciphering the hieroglyphical inscriptions on 
one of the upright tablets at Nineveh, discovered amongst 
the names of thirteen great gods, one identical with Tao or 
Jupiter. § Abbe Cambalot, quoting Lao Tse, a Chinese 
writer, gives the following curious passage — " Celui que 
vous regardez et que vous ne voyez pas, se nomme /; celui 
que vous ecoutez, et que vous n'entendez pas, se nomme 



* Lexicon, p. 156. f Genese, p. 6, 

± Targums on the Pentateuch, p 8. 
% Second Expedition to Nineveh, p. 629. 



ITS AUTHOESHIP AKD AUTHENTICITY. 115 



SI} celui que votre main cherche, et qu'elle ne pent sasir, 
se nomme Wei : ce sont trois etres que Ton ne peut com- 
prendre, et qui confondus n'en font qu'un. Celui qui est 
au-dessus n'est pas plus brillant ; celui qui est au-dessous 
n'est pas plus obscur : c'est une chaine sans interruption, 
qui rentre dans le nom etre, qu'on appelle forme sans 
forme, etre indefinissable. En allant au-devant, on ne lui 
voit point de principe; en le suivant, on ne voit rien au- 
dela," M. Abel Eemusat thinks that the I, HI, We% ia 
identical with the Jehovah of the Jews."* 

The Pentateuch, says Von Bohlen, " can no better conceal^ 
than the books which immediately succeed it, that Jehovah 
was at first merely the national Deity of the Israelites. Cain 
is afraid to dwell in a land where ^ Jehovah is not ; ' the 
Deity goes down with his people into Egypt, and appears 
there to his chosen servants. He is constantly spoken of 
as * the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob,' or * the God of 
the Hebrews.' "t Von Bohlen denies that the name Jehovah 
is Semitic in its origin ; he does not affirm from whence the 
Jews derived the word, but apparently favours the theory 
of its Egyptian origin. 

Chap, xxiii. v. 2. — A writer in the Cornhill Magazinet 
says — " We may remark that the antipathy of the Jewish 
professors to women is oddly enough evinced in one of their 
glosses on the Book of Genesis. In this they contend that 
Abraham shed but few tears on the death of Sarah, inas- 
much as she had grown old, and that, as a consequence, 
he was not altogether sorry to get rid of her. That his 
tears were scanty, they conclude from the fact that the letter 
Caph, which is used in describing his weeping, is a remark- 
ably small letter, and, being a small letter, could only be 
used with propriety in the description of a small thing ; 
and, accordingly, the thing described being the weeping, 
that weeping must have been small, as the letter certainly 
is,'' *• I do not know on what authority this is given. The 
letter Caph is relatively not a small letter, either in Bib- 
lical or Eabbinical Hebrew. 

* Cambalot's Elemens de Philosophie, p. 20. 

t Introduction to Genesis, vol. l,p. 148; H^^vw^jod's translation,, 

t No. 64, p. 486. 



GENESIS J 



Chap, xxiii., t. 6. — ^* Hear us, my Lord : Thou art a mighty 
prince among us," Kalisch, Bellamy, the Douay, the Vul- 
gate, and the Sepiuagint agree in translating the words a 
mighty prince " as a prince of God." The word rendered 
mighty in our version is Q^^nSt^ (ALEIM), which is gene- 
rally translated God in our Biole. Why have the orthodox 
translators given a different rendering here ? 

Verse 9.—" Cave of Machpelah." The Douay, the Vul- 
gate, and the Septuagint translate this " the double cave.'' 
That is, while our version makes Machpelah the proper 
name of a district, the other versions do not treat it as a 
proper name at all In verse 17 this distinction quite alters 
the sense. Our version reads — And the field of Ephron, 
which was in Machpelah ; " the Douay and Vulgate, And 
the field that before was Ephron's, wherein was the double 
cave." "Was the field in Machpelah, or was Machpelah 
{i.e., the double cave) in the field? 

Verse 13. — Saying, But if thou wilt give it, I pray thee, 
hear me." The Jewish reading of this passage affords in- 
ternal evidence of some corruption, by the impossibility 
there is of collecting from it any intelligible and consistent 
meaning ; and accordingly all the various attempts to fill 
up the chasm have proved utterly ineffectual. Thus, for 
instance, the supplement which is introduced into the au- 
thorised English rendering of the sentence, and marked 
with italics, is quite at variance with the context. The 
Septuagint reads, following in this the sense of the Samaritan 
and Syriac : Since thou art on my side, hear me."* The 
Douay, following the Latin Vulgate, reads ; " I beseech thee 
to hear me ; " Bellamy : " But if thou wait hear me ; " 
Kalisch : ^< If thou only, oh, if thou would'st hear me." 
The words wilt give it " are not only not in the Hebrew, 
but are absurdly introduced by the translators of our ver- 
sion, and without any warranty in the spirit of the story. 

Chap xxiv., V. 3. — The conduct of Abraham as to oath- 
taking is disapproved in Matthew, chap, v., vv. 34 to 37, awd 
James, chap, v., v. 12. In the Pentateuch and other books 
of the Old Testament swearing is common. God binds 



* Grounds for Revision p. 447, 



ITS A17TH0ESHIP AND AUTHENTICITT. 



117 



himself by an oath, and his prophets do likewise. It is not 
an edifying task for the true believer to estimate how often 
these scripture-recorded oaths have been broken. 

Chap, xxiv., v. 14. — Bellamy says that " in this verse 
there are six words in the authorised version for which there 
is not any authority in the Hebrew — viz., let the same be 
she that.'^ According to the Douay and the Latin Yulgate, 
Abraham's servant talked to himself ] how were the words 
made known to the writer of Genesis ? 

Verse 47, — I put the earring upon her face.*' Kalisch 
renders this, I put the nose-ring in her nose.'^ 

Yerse 55. — Five words are put in for which there is no 
authority in the Hebrew — viz., " a few at the least.'' 

Chap. XXV., vv. 1 and 2. — Then again Abraham took a 
wife, and her name was Keturah. And she bare him 
Zimran, and Jokshan, and Medan, and Midian, and Ishbak, 
and Shuah.'' The account is repugnant to what went be- 
fore. If Abraham, at the age of 100 years, laughed at the 
idea of his having a son, how does it happen that, when he 
was 137 years old, he marries again and begets six children ?* 
The great age of Abraham has long before been emphati- 
cally urged (xxiv., v. 1) ; about forty years pre\'ious to the pe- 
riod to which this portion seems to refer he had felt the debility 
of advancing years approaching (xvii., v. 17;, and the birth 
of Isaac was considered a miracle beyond the natural order 
of events (xviii., v. 11), since Abraham was at that time as 
good as dead (Hebrews xi., v. 12) ; and yet after all this he 
has a large family. 

Yerse 3. — Kalisch says, a ^eat perplexity arises from 
the circumstance that it contains names elsewhere intro- 
duced in perfectly different connections. Por Sheba and 
Dedan, here traced to Abraham and mentioned as the sons 
of Jokshan, are in the great catalogue of nations (x., 7) 
enumerated amongst the Cushites, and described as the sons 
of Eaamah."' Asshuriai seems to me more like the inhabit- 
ants of Asshur (see chap, x., v. 11, and page 80) than the 
name of an individual. The other two names, Letushim 
and Lemmira, seem plural nouns. 



♦ Giles's Hebrew Records, p. 183. 



118 



Verses 5 and 6. — If Abraham really gave all that he 
had " unto Isaac, what kind of gifts did his other children 
get ? The text intends, probably, that Isaac got the residue 
of Abraham's property, not ^that he had the whole of it. 

Verse 6.— The word D^ty:i'^^D (PhlLeQ-^ShlM) « concu- 
bines," should, according to Eabbi Solomon Ben Isaac, "be 
□tiJiSs (PheL^GeSh^M), without the to show that it was 
only one concubine — i.e., Hagar, who was identical with 
Keturah, according to the opinion of Berishith Eabba."* 

Verse 23 — Advocates for the rights of primogeniture 
ought to read this verse attentively. God seems to have a 
preference for younger sons : the dutiful Ishmael (who, 
though turned out into the desert to starve, forgot his 
wrongs, and attended to place his father's body in the grave) 
was set aside for his younger brother Isaac. The truthful, 
manly, and forgiving elder born Esau is supplanted by the 
crafty, cowardly , and untruthful Jacob. 

Chap, xxvi., vv. 7 to 11. — Of this adventure happening a 
third time in the history of father and son, and a second 
time in the same country, Professor Newman says, Allow- 
ing that such a thing was barely not impossible, the impro- 
bability was so intense as to demand the strictest and most 
cogent proof ; yet, when we asked who testified it, no proof 
appeared that it was Moses ; or, supposing it to be he, 
what his sources of knowledge were." Isaac's falsehood in 
passing off his wife as his sister seems to have been directly 
rewarded by God. (See verse 12.) 

Verse 8.— The word pm?2 (MeTzHQ), here translated 

sporting/' is the same word which in c. xxi. v. 9 (see 
page 108) was rendered mocking," the translators hoping 
to manufacture some justification for Sarah's hard hearted- 
ness. In 2 Samuel, c. ii. v. 14, play seems to take a 
wide meaning ; but the Hebrew word in that case, although 
somewhat similar, is clearly not the same as in the two 
under notice. 

Verse 34. — And Esau was forty years old when he took 
to wife Judith the daughter of Beeri the Hittite, and Bashe- 
math the daughter of Elon the Hittite." In c. xxxvi. w. 2 



♦ Jacob Ben Chajini's Introduction, p. 20. 



ITS ATTTHOESHIP AIST) AUTHENTICITT. 



119 



and 3, we read that Esau took his wives of the daughters 
of Canaan ; Adah the daughter of El on the Hittite, and 
Aholibamah the daughter of Anah, the daughter of Zibeon 
the Hivite ; and Bashemath, Ishmael's daughter, sister of 
Kebajoth." The only name agreeing is that of Bashemath, 
who is in one verse described as Ishmael's daughter, and in 
the other as the daughter of Elon the Hittite. In c. xxviii. 
V. 9 the third wife, the daughter of Ishmael, is called Maha- 
lath. Is it important that Christians should have any be- 
lief as to the names of Esau's wives ? If yes, how are they 
to believe one statement in preference to the other ? If the 
names are declared to be unimportant, may not an objector 
fairly urge that many other names and a great deal of nar- 
rative are also immaterial ? and if once you commence the 
process of rejecting any portion as unnecessary, where is the 
line to be drawn ? 

Gen., chap, xxvii., w. 18 to 24. — And he came unto his 
father, and said, My father. And he said, Here am I ; who 
art thou, my son? And Jacob said unto his father, I am 
Esau thy first-born ; I have done according as thou badest 
me : arise, I pray thee, sit and eat of my venison, that thy 
soul may bless me. And Isaac said unto his son, How is it 
that thou hast found it so quickly, my son? And he said, 
Because the Lord thy Grod brought it to me. And Isaac 
said unto Jacob, Come near, I pray thee, that I may feel 
thee, my son, whether thou be my very son Esau or not. 
And Jacob went near unto Isaac his father; and he felt 
him, and said. The voice is Jacob's voice, but the hands are 
the hands of Esau. And he discerned him not, because his 
hands were hairy, as his brother Esau's hands. So he blessed 
him. And he said. Art thou my very son Esau ? And he 
said, I am." Psalm cxx., v. 2 — Deliver my soul, O Lord, 
from lying lips, and from a deceitful tongue." Proverbs 
xii., V. 22 — Eying lips are abomination to the Lord : but 
they that deal truly are his delight.*' Proverbs vi., vv. 16 
to 19 — These six things doth the Lord hatt^ : yea, seven 
are an abomination unto him : a proud look, a lying tongue, 
and hands that shed innocent blood, an heart that deviseth 
wicked imaginations, feet that be swift in running to mis- 
chief, a false witness that speaketh lies, and he that soweth 



120 



discord among brethren.'* Malachi i., v. 2— "Was not 

Esau Jacob's brother? saith the Lord : yet I loved Jacob, 
and I hated Esau.'^ Our Eoman Catholic friends try to 
show that this was not a lie on Jacob's part, or if one a 
white lie. A note to the Douay Bible tells us St. Augus- 
tine (L. contra mendacura, c. 10) treating at large upon this 
place, excuseth Jacob from a lie, because this whole passage 
was mysterious as relating to the preference which was 
afterwards to be given to the Gentiles before the carnal 
Jews, 7chich Jacob by prophefic light might understand ! 
So far it is certain that the birthright, both by divine elec- 
tion and by Esau's free cession, belonged to Jacob, so that 
if there were any lie in the case it could be no more than an 
officious and venal one.'* Were Abraham's lies also pro- 
phetic truths ? Was Isaac's falsehood of the same charac- 
ter ? The God who hates liars and abominates lying lips 
specially calls himself the God of Abraham, of Isaac, and of 
Jacob. It is sad to read the pitiable efforts made by various 
writers to free Jacob from blame. Bellamy says that Jacob 
did not lie, for that " when he said * I am Esau/ he did not 
mean the person of Esau, but that he was in the place of 
Esau as to the succession of primogeniture.''* What did 
Jacob mean when he answered that he had found the venison 
so quickly because the Lord God brought it to him, while 
he well knew that he had taken tame goats from the flock? 
It is idle to justify this, or the reply *' I am " to the ques- 
tion " art thou my very son Esau ?" The pious William 
Jones says, We are struck with horror indeed at seeing 
one lie added to another, and the sacred name of God intro- 
duced as it were to sanctify the cheat.''t Kalisch declares 
that Jacob debased himself in this scene by falsehood, craft, 
and shameless blasphemy. Most readers will be inclined to 
endorse the judgment of Kalisch, In fact a perusal of 
verse 12 — " My father peradventure will feel me, and I 
shall seem to him as a deceiver ; and I shall bring a curse 
upon me, and not a blessing " — shows that Jacob himself 
knew that he was trying to deceive his blind old father. 



* New Translation, p. 111. 
\ Biblical Cyclopaedia. 



ITS AUTHOIgSHrP AI?1> ATTTHENTICITT, 



Verse 36. — Is not he rightly named Jacob ? for he 
hath supplanted me these two times." Kalisch says Jacob, 
" if taken in its obvious etymological meaning, implies a 
deep ignominy ; for the root from which it is derived 
signifies to deceive or defraud;" it is in this sense Esau 
uses the word. Our translators in this verse have followed 
the Vulgate, Septuagint, and Sjriac, not the Hebrew, which 
is incoherent and evidently inaccurate. Literally translated 
the Hebrew is " Whether because one hath called his name 
Jacob, for he hath supplanted me this pair of turns." Cahen 
translates it — ^'L'a-t on appele Jacob parcequ'il m'a deja 
supplante deux fois." Wall says* — " How grievously the 
later sets of English translators were perplexed by the 
structure of the Hebrew passage here examined, is placed in 
a prominent light by the artifice to which they were induced 
to resort, in order to give their respective renderings of it, 
in seeming conformity with the profession made by them in 
the title pages of their versions, some faint appearance of 
being taken from the Hebrew. It is obviously for this 
purpose that they put the first clause of their several trans- 
lations of this passage in an interrogative form. But a 
question, coupled with a negative, substantially amounts to 
a positive statement; and the query 'is he not rightly 
named?' is virtually equivalent \j6 the assertion, ^ he is 
rightly named ;' so that the renderings employed by them 
certainly could not have been deri^^ed from the Hebrew text 
in its present state, but must have been surreptitiously bor- 
rowed from one of the ancient versions. The very negation 
introduced into these renderings estranges them from the 
Hebrew passage, wherein no w^arrant whatever is to be found 
for such an expression, any more thanfor theadverb justly " 
or rightly " here inserted in their translations. 

Verse S9 — " Behold, thy dwelling shall be the fatness of 
the earth, and of the dew of heaven from above." Kalisch 
translates this — Behold, without the fatness of the earth 
shall be thy dwelling, and without the dew of heaven from 
above." He adds, that were the authorised version correct, 
the prediction would be untrue, since Idumea is no ferfJe, 



Grounds for He vision, p, 4j5. 



but, on the contrary, a most dreary and unproductiTe land.* 
Cahen, whose translation agrees with our version, remarks, 
Toutefois P Idumee, sejour d'Esau, n'etait pas une terre 
fertile.'' 

Verse 40. — And by thy sword shalt thou live, and shalt 
serve thy brother [there is no evidence that Esau ever did 
Berve his brother] ; and it shall come to pass when thou 
shalt have the dominion, that thou shalt break his yoke from 
off thy neck." The Douay translates this — " And the time 
shall come when thou shalt shake off, and loose his yoke from 
thy neck.** Kalisch, who declares our version incorrect, 
renders it — " When thou truly desirest it, thou shalt break 
his yoke from thy neck." Cahen gives — Toutefois quand 
tu auras (assez) souffert, tu secoueras son joug de dessus 
ton cou." The Samaritan version is just the opposite to 
Cahen's.t Other translators have given still different ren- 
derings of this passage. 

Chapter xxviii., v. 11. — Even in a dream, the idea of a 
ladder reaching from earth to heaven to enable God and his 
angels to go up and down is rather ludicrous. The Douay 
says that Jacob " saw the ladder in his sleep.'' A dream, in 
the Bible, is intended to have a far stronger significance than 
we should attach to it ; we are told that God often appeared 
to various persons in dreams. The writer of Genesis evi- 
dently conceived a ladder necessary to enable the angels of 
God to get up to heaven, in the same style in which you or 
I might ascend to the roof of a house. 

" In India, many caves used as temples, contain a high 
ladder, with seven gates, in conformity with the number of 
planets, upon which the soul is believed gradually to ascend 
to the highest abode of bliss. In the mysteries of Mythra, 
a ladder is introduced with seven steps, on which the spirits 
were believed to ascend through the planets till they arrived 
in the eighth heaven, where the Deity is enthroned."J 

Verses 20 and 21. — " And Jacob vowed a vow, saying, If 
God will be with me, and will keep me in this way that I 
go, and give me bread to eat, and raiment to put on, so 

♦ Genesis, p, 515, 
t Cahen's Genese, 85. 
t Kalisch: Genesis, 522, 



rrS AUTHOESHIP ATH) AUTHEOTICITY, 



123 



that I come again to my father's house in peace, then shall 
the Lord be my Q-od." The fair inference from this condi- 
tional statement is, that if God does not keep, clothe, and 
feed Jacob, then he shall not be Jacobus God, Jacob was a 
shrewd fellow ; he did not want to be religious for nothing. 
He would have cared little for the preacher, whose sermon 
should have taught, Take no thought what ye shall eat, or 
what ye shall drink, or wherewithal ye shall be clothed. '* Ob- 
jectors to the text have rightly spoken of this chapter as re- 
cording Jacob's selfish bargain. Jacob's generous offer re- 
corded in verse 22, to repay to God a tithe of all God might 
give to him, is in thorough harmony with the preceding 
verses.* Cahen adds — The Scriptures do not say when 
Jacob performed this part of his vow." 

C. xxix. V. 17 to 25.— The Douaj says that Leah was blear- 
eyed, Josephus that she had no comely countenance," and 
he adds that Jacob was drunk after the wedding feast, which 
fact and being in the dark prevented him from discovering 
the change of brides. 

C. XXX. V. 8, — With great wrestlings have I wrestled with 
my sister." The Douay and Vulgate read—" God hath 
compared me with my sister." KaHsch gives — " Struggles 
of God have I struggled with my sister." 

Verse 11, — A troop cometh." The Douay translates 
this—*' Happily ;" Kalisch, ^^n felicity ;" Vulgate, **Feli- 
citer." Cahen says the phrase is difficult to translate. 

Jacob's frauds upon Laban are in keeping with his pre* 
vious character ; but Jacob and Laban are better matched 
than Jacob and Esau. Laban is as willing to cheat as 
Jacob ; the latter is only ultimately successful because he 
has God to aid him. Jacob expressly states to his wives 
that God had taken the cattle of Laban to give to bim. 

Chapter xxxi. — Jacob's stealing away unawares whilst 
Laban was away sheep shearing, forms a fitting termination 
to his connection with Laban. The " images " which Each el 
stole are called '^Teraphim" by Kalisch and Bellamy. The 
Douay, the Septuagint, and Vulgate call them ^^idol?." Tho 
Hebrew is D^sm (Th^RePhlM.) The TeraphiiD.are 



• Genege, p. 88. 



124 



GE]S'ESTS : 



eometimes identified \^ith the Cherubim, see page 49. In 
Hosea, c. iii., v. 4, ^' Teraphim " are mentioned as advan- 
tages of which the sinning Israelites were to be temporarily- 
deprived.* From the history of Mieah in Judges chaps, xvii. 
and xviii., the Teraphim seem to have been regarded as 
Deities, who, although made of metal, delivered oracles in 
reply to priestly interrogations. They are also spoken of 
in the Bible as though they were heathen idols. Kalisch 
saysf — " Almost numberless absurdities have been advanced 
with regard to the Teraphim ; ancient Eabbis assert that 
their worship was connected with atrocious customs of 
murder, and, with ludicrous efforts to elicit divinations, that 
they were horoscopic or astrologic instruments ; that 
they were automata to indicate the hours, or that they were 
something lihe donkey s.^^ Park hurst says — "There is little 
room to doubt that each Teraphim was a compound image 
with several heads, joined to one body like the Cherubim in 
form, but for more private purposes/':}: Newman calls 
them—" Household gods which were made in the form of 
a human person." Mr. Etheridge says — "The obscurity 
which hangs over the true meaning of this word (Teraphim), 
may be judged of by the multiplicity of the derivations as- 
signed to it. 1. That, by a change of the first letter, it is 
equivalent to Seraphim, and may denote images of bright 
or burnished brass. 2. That it comes from tseraphj ' to melt,* 
whence tsoreph, ' goldsmith,' and signifies molten images. 
3. It comes from ra'pha 'to heal,' and describes talismans 
used as charms for curing or averting diseases. 4. From 
taraph, ' to feed, nourish.' The Teraphim from this view 
were some kind of objects, the presence of which, in a house, 
was thought to ensure support and plenty. 5. Some Kab- 
bins make it a term of contempt from turaph, ' shameful- 
n€S8.' 6. Others with the same idea derive it from raphaim^ 
^weak things,' like the dead. 7. Another opinion assigns 
it to the Syriac teraph, ' to ask of, inquire,' in which re- 



* Wait's Jewish Antiquities, p. 167. 
f Genesis, 554. 

X Lexicon p. 648 ; but see Eichhorn's Simonis, 1764; Buxtorf;5llj 
and Newman, 732. 



ITS AUTHOESHIP AKD AUTHENTICITY. 



125 



spect the terapTiim were domestic idols."*' The devout 
student of the Bible can be certain either that teraphim are 
good, or that they are bad ; the evidence goes both ways, 
and, as to the meaning of the word, the less probably a 
true believer* knows about meanings the better for his faith. 

Verse 24 : " Speak not to Jacob either good or bad." — 
This would in fact be an injunction from God that Laban 
was to observe absolute silence. The Vulgate has ne 
quidquam aspere loquaris contra Jacob/' in this following 
the Septuagint. 

Verse 51. — And Laban said to Jacob, Behold this heap, 
and behold this pillar, which I have cast betwixt me and 
thee." In lieu of which 1 have cast," the Douay has, 

which I have set up;" the Vulgate, quern erexi;" Cahen, 
" que j'ai eriges." This is in direct opposition, says Dr. 
Wall, to the rest of the narrative. ^' Tor we are expressly 
informed, in the 45th and 46th verses of this very chapter, 
that the pillar here mentioned was set up, not by Laban but 
by Jacob ; and that the heap of stones was collected, not by 
Laban 's but by Jacob's direction. The Septuagint alto- 
gether omits the phrase. 

Verse 53. — Tiie words God of their father'' are not in 
the Septuagint. Cahen translates it, *^the Gods of their 
fathers." 

Chap. xxxii.,v. 1.—'* Angels of God.*' Bellamiy does not 
believe these were celestial beings. (See pages 95 to 97.) 
The Reverend A. M^Caul has a long article,^ in which ho 
admits that the mere word translated angel might as fairly 
be rendered man ; but he argues that there are beings, 

angels " entrusted with various missions on earth, and 
that one of these is in fact God himself. The courage of 
Jacob does not seem raised by the meeting with the angels ; 
their presence does not appear to have given the Jewish 
patriarch the slightest confidence in God's intention to pro- 
tect him ; Jacob's fear of Esau is greater than his faith in 
God. 

Verse 22: ^'His eleven sons." — Cahen translates " ses 



* Grounds for Revision, p. 458. 
t Targums on Leviticus, p. 23. 
X Habbi Kinchi on Jeremiah, p. 9. 



126 



genesis: 



onzeenfans;** the Hebrew is, Vl^^ Iflb^ (ACheD 

OSheE ILeDITJ), " his eleven children." Our translators 
have rendered sons because Jacob had then twelve children — 
viz., Joseph, Dinah, Zebulun, Issachar, Asher, Gad, Naph- 
thali, Dan, Judah, Levi, Simeon, Keuben. The word sons*' 
is CD^Jl— BeNIM, an entirely different word. 

Verse 28. — And he said, Thy name shall be called no 
more Jacob, but Israel." Yet, notwithstanding this, the 
name of Jacob is afterwards used repeatedly in Genesis ; 
and when talking to Moses God calls himself the God of 
Jacob/' not the God of Israel. 

Verse 30. — " And Jacob called the name of the place 
Peniel : for I have seen God face to face, and my life is pre- 
served." 1 John, chap, xl., v. 12: "No man hath seen 
God at any time and John, chap, i., v. 18 ; chap, v., t. 
37 ; and chap, vi., v. 46. 1 Timothy, chap, vi., v. 16 : 
*^ Who only hath immortality, dwelling in the light which 
no man can approach thereto; whom no man hath seen, 
nor can see." Exodus, chap, xxxiii., v. 20 : * And he said, 
Thou canst not see my face ; for there shall no man see 
me and live.'* This seems as express and clear a contradic- 
tion in words as it is possible to conceive. 

Verses 3JL and 32. — " And as he passed over Penuel, the 
sun rose upon him, and he halted upon his thigh.'* 
Therefore the children of Israel eat not of the sinew which 
shrank, which is upon the hollow of the thigh, unto this day ; 
because he touched the hollow of Jacob's thigh in the sinew 
that shrank." This reference to a custom still existing 
among the Israelites seems decidedly to indicate a later date 
than that of Moses. No one has ventured to assert that the 
Mosaic law was observed by the Jews before it was instituted 
by Moses. Now the words of the passage before us seem to 
show that the Israelites had, for a very long time, abstained 
from eating the sinew which shrank. Moses being conscious 
that this custom was ordained by himself, could hardly have 
used such language, or have claimed such great antiquity as 
the words seem to indicate.* 

The narrative in verses 24 to 30, coupled with Hosesii 



• Hebrew Records, 142. 



ITS ATTTHOBSHIP ATH) ATTTHEI^TICITT. 



127 



c. xii., w, 3 and 4, conveys the meaning that Jacob wrestled 
with God, who had assumed the form of a man, that the 
finite and created man was as strong and able at wrestling 
as the omnipotent and infinite creator. That Grod,to con- 
quer Jacob unfairly, put his thigh out of joint, and that even 
then Jacob refused to let God go until he had given him his 
blessing. Bellamy entirely denies the correctness of our 
version, and disputes the whole story. 

It is impossible to read of Jacob's coward fear of Esau, 
and his boldness against God, without some surprise. Jacob's 
attempts to bribe his brother to forgive him, Esau's rejection 
of the proffered gifts, and his magnanimous conduct to Jacob, 
form an instructive scene. Jacob free in his own heart from 
all generous emotions, could only imagine Esau's march 
with 400 men as one of vengeance, and his abject entreaties 
to God, " Deliver me, I pray thee, from the hands of my 
brother," will mark his despicably cowardly nature. 

It is almost impossible to find a greater contrast than 
that presented by Jacob whom God loved, and Esau whom 
he hated. Esau, rough, manly, vigorous, brave, genuine, 
truthful, and generous — Jacob, mean, unprincipled, cunning, 
cowardly, and lyin^. 

Chap, xxxiii., v. 14. — Jacob still adheres to his old craft, it 
is evidently not his intention to follow Esau to Seir. Cab en 
says — Tout le monde convient que V intention de Jacob 
n^etait pas dialler d Seir ynais d' eloigner son frereJ^ 

Verse 18. — " Jacob came to Salem." Many Rabbis trans- 
late it that Jacob arrived in peace," or arrived safely; op 
cured of his accident. Coverdale, Matthews, and others, 
deny the existence of Salem as a city.* 

Chap xxxiv. — Upon this chapter Voltaire has the follow- 
ing severe observations : — The son of a king is desirous to 
marry, to repair a wrong done to a Hebrew girl ; the 
marriage is approved; Jacob, the father, and Dinah, the 
daughter, are loaded with presents : the King of Sichem 
deigns to receive the patriarchs within his city ; he has the 
incredible politeness to undergo, with his son, his court, and 
his people, the rite of circumcision, thus condescending to 

* See Bellamy's New Translation, 132 j and contra Cahen : Genese, 
110 ; and Kalisch, 575. 



128 



the superstition of a petty horde that could not call half a 
league of territory their own ! And, in return for this 
astonishing hospitality and goodness, how do our holy 
patriarchs act ? They wait for the day when the process of 
circumcision generally induces fever ; when Simeon and Levi 
run through the whole city with poignards in their hands 
and massacre the king, the prince his son, and all the in- 
habitants. We are precluded from the horror appropriate 
to this infernal counterpart of the tragedy St. Bartholomew, 
only by a sense of its absolute impossibility. It is an abo- 
minable romance ; but it is evidently a ridiculous romance. 
It is impossible that two men could have slaughtered in 
quiet the whole population of a city. The people might 
suffer, in a slight degree, from the operation which had 
preceded ; but, notwithstanding this, they would have risen 
in self-defence against two diabolical miscreants ; they would 
have instantly assembled, would have surrounded them, and 
destroyed them with the summary and complete vengeance 
merited by their atrocity." It is difficult from the incoher- 
ency of Bible chronology to arrive with accuracy at a know- 
ledge of Dinah's age, but the chronological evidence, such 
as it is, would make her very juvenile at the time of this 
tragedy. Some opponents of the text have contended 
that Dinah was only three years old. Josephus tells the 
story very differently from Genesis ; he not only omits the 
whole account of the circumcision of the Shechemites, but 
actually states that when the sons of Jacob were asked about 
the proposed marriage, " the greatest part said nothing not 
knowing what advice to give," but that it being the time of 
a festival when the Shechemites were employed in ease and 
feasting, Simeon and Levi fell upon the watch when they 
were asleep, and coming into the city slew all the males.* 

Spinoza says— In the47fch chap, of Genesis, it is recorded 
that Jacob, when first presented by Joseph his son to 
Pharaoh, was 130 years old, from which if 22 be taken, 
which he passed in sorrow on account of the loss of Joseph, 
and 17 for Joseph's age when he was sold by his brethren, 
and lastly seven when he served for Eachel, Jacob is found 



* Antiquites: Book 1, chap. 21. 



ITS AUTHORSOTP ATTD AtTTHENTTClTt. 129 



at a very advanced age — viz., 84, when he took Leah to wife ; 
on the contrary, Dinah could have scarcely been seven when 
she was violated by Sechem ; and Simeon and Levi, again 
scarcely 12 and 11 when they ravaged a city and put all the 
inhabitants thereof to the sword."* Kalisch says,t Some 
of the details of the narrative contained in this chapter are 
certainly of an extraordinary nature. True the caprice of 
Oriental princes has demanded and obtained stranger things 
from their subjects than that which Sechem required from 
the men of his town ; it may further be granted that Simeon 
and Levi were, under the circumstances, alone able to kill 
the whole male population of a large city, and to carry away 
all the cattle and every other property (for the text does not 
countenance the supposition that they were supported by a 
large number of servants), but what did the victors do with 
the captive women and children ?" 

Chap. XXXV., V. 10. — This verse is a repetition of c. xxxii., 
V. 29, indeed it is a contradiction of it, for if the first change 
had been made by Q-od, the second would have been unneces- 
sary. 

Verses 14 and 15. — These verses seem in the same way a 
repetition of chap, xxviii., vv. 18 and 19. 

Verse 16. — There was but a little way." Cahen, on the 
contrary, says — " II y avait encore une grand e etendue de 
pays.^I The Douay and Vulgate make it, He came in the 
spring time to the land." It can hardly be satisfactory for 
the unlearned believer to discover passages so difierently 
translated by learned men. He is either driven to doubt, or 
is compelled to have faith, not in Grod's original revelation, 
but in the infallibility of some one out of several opposing 
translations. 

Chap. XXXV., V. 19. — "And Rachel died, and was buried ia 
the way to Eprath, which is Beth-lehem." 1 Samuel x., v. 2, 
says that Eachel's sepulchre was at Zebzah. Colenso notices 

Eprath which is Beth-lehem," as one of the signs of later 
date, the modern name being given as well as the ancient one.§ 



* Tractatus Theologico Politicus, cap. 9. f Genesis, 583. 

X See also Kalisch 589, who makes it still a distance.'' 
§ Colenso, Part ii., 217. 



130 



GIKESIS! 



Verse 21. — The whole of this verse is omitted in tho 
Septuagint. 

Verse 22, and chap, xlix., vv. 3 and 4., and 1 Chron. v., 
V. 1. — The family to whom God promised the land," seem 
to have been most immoral and vicious. Abraham's conduct 
has been already noticed ; the lives of Lot, his family, and 
neighbours, afford, too, much scope for animadversion ; 
Isaac's procedure was certainly not free from blame in the 
matter of liebekah, but he appears a saint by comparison 
with the rascality of his son Jacob, whose wife, Eachel (wor- 
thy partner of such a husband) robs her own father — tho 
cut-throat propensities of Simeon and Levi — and the licen- 
tiousness of Eeuben. 

End of verse 22 to verse 26. — Dr. Giles* speaks of the 
inaccuracy of the last verse as follows : — ' These are the 
eons of Jacob, which were bom to him in Padan-Aram.' 
But it is well known that Benjamin was bom some years 
after Jacob returned to Canaan. The text, therefore, is in- 
correct, and creates a serious difficulty, if we suppose that 
Moses, writing in the presence of God, could have been 
liable to such an error." Kalisch thus sums up, inter alia, 
the difficulties of this chapterf — '* The words, ^ and Jacob 
arrived at Luz, which is in the land of Canaan ' (verse 6), 
seem to imply that he was coming from a part beyond the 
territory of the Holy Land (see chap, xxxiii., v. 18), and 
yet he is supposed to have proceeded from Shechem [which 
is part of Canaan]. Jacob was commanded by God to stay 
or to live in Bethel (verse i),but he left it after a very short 
time (verse 1 6). The name of Bethel was long in existence 
(verses 1 and 3, chap, xxviii., v. 19), and yet it seems now 
only to have been given to that place by Jacob (verse 15). 
The Patriarch's name had been changed at Peniel (chap, 
xxxii., verse 29), but it would seem that he received the 
appellation of Israel now only at Bethel (verse 10 )." 

Chap, xxxvi. — " Now these are the generations of Esau, 
who is Edom." In verse 9 the Hebrew says that Esau is 
the father of Edom ; to avoid the contradiction our trans- 
lators have written father of the Edomites." 



* Hebrew Records, 190. 
f Genesis, 691. 



ITS ATTTHOESHIP Am) ATTTHEimCrrT. 131 



Verse 11.— IDS (TsePhU) is, in 1 Chron. i., y. 36, 
written "^SiJ (TsePhI), probably a copyist's blunder. 

Verse 12. — Timna was concubine to Eliphaz.'' 1 Chron. 
i., V. 36, makes Timna the son of Eliphaz. 

Verse 14 is a mere repetition of verse 5, and Terse 18 
again another repetition of the same statement. 

Verse 20. — Who was Seir? In several places there is 
mount Seir mentioned, but we find no man so named. 

Verse 22.— DJiD^n (EIMeM) is, in 1 Chron. i., v. 39, 
written DDin (EUMeM ), just reversing the sort of blunder 
referred to in verse 11. 
jVerse 23.— p'^iT (OLTJN) is written, in 1 Chron. i., v. 40, 
(OLIN), a similar error in copying, but again reversed. 
•iDty (ShePAU) is written, in 1 Chron. i., v. 40, *^StU 
(ShePhI). 

Verse 26.— p^H (KeMDeN) is, in 1 Chron. i., v. 41, 
written (HeMEeN). In an2:Hcising this word, the 

translators have turned the final N into M, writing it in 
Chronicles Amram. 

Verse 27.—\pV (OQeN) is, in 1 Chron. i., v. 42, written 
])P1^^ (lOQeN). These inaccuracies, and some others occur- 
ring in this chapter, are of the same character as those 
pointed out in page 78, and while — being simply copyist's 
blunders, in substituting one letter for another, the letters 
being similar in form — they are of little importance to an 
ordinary reader, if the Bible be regarded as uninspired ; they 
are most important to all mankind if the Bible be regarded 
in every particular as God's inspired word demanding our 
implicit faith, because these errors demonstrate not only 
that errors may occur in the sacred text, but that they have 
occurred. 

Chap, xxxi., v. 31. — " And these are the kings that reigned 
in the land of Edom, before there reigned any king over the 
children of Israel,"* This verse has long been a stumbling 
block to the critics. Colenso says — " The phrase, ^before there 
reigned any king over the children of Israel,' is here used to 
imply that one king at least had reigned, or was reigning 

♦ Dr. Giles's Hebrew Records, 140 j De Wette, vol. ii., sec.; 149; 
Spinoza, Tractatus, c, 8. 



132 



GENESIS : 



over * the children of Israel,' that is, apparently, not over 
one of the separate kingdoms of Judah or Israel, but over the 
united people, at the time when it was written. In other 
words, it could not have been written before the time of 
SamueL* 

Verse 39.— -^IH (EDeE) is, in 1 Chron. i., v. 50, mn 
(EDeD) ; and (POU) is. in Chronicles, (POI). 

Verse 40.~n^^3; (OLTJE) is, in 1 Chron. i., v. 51, 
written ^4^^ (OLIE). 

Verse 40. — Cahen regards these latter verses as an in- 
correct repetition of those commencing with verse 15. He 
remarks that the list of dukes succeeding, instead of pre 
ceding tlie Kings of Edom has much embarrassed the corn- 
men tators.t 

Chap, xxxvii., v. 1. — In the Douay, instead of " wherein 
his father was a stranger," it reads, wherein his father 
sojourned.'' Cahen reads, " oil aonpere avait sejourne'^ The 
Vulgate, *^ in qua pater suns peregrinatus,^^ And in verse 2, 
instead of seventeen," the Douay and Vulgate read 

sixteen," and they state that Joseph accused his brethren 
to his father of a most wicked crime." 

The words, " These are the generations of Jacob," seem 
without sense or connection with the verses following. 

Verses 25, 27, and 28. — " Here the merchants to whom 
Joseph is sold, are thrice called Ishmaelites, and once Midian- 
ites. Bishop Patrick explains the inconsistency in the 
following extraordinary manner : — 

' Ishmaelites, They are called below Midianites. These 
people were near neighbours to each other, and were joined 
together in one company, or caravan, as it is now called. 
It is the custom, even to the present day, in the East, for 
merchants and others to travel through the deserts in large 
companies, for fear of robbers or wild beasts.' 

If the passage to which these comments are annexed, 
occurred in one of the famous Greek or Latin historians — 
Livy, Thucydides, or any other — such a note would not, for 
one instant, be taken as sound criticism, because none of 



♦ Pentateuch, Partii., p. 202. 
t Genese, 124. 



ITS AUTHORSHIP A^TD ATTTHENTICITT. 133 

those able writers would be guilty of such an absurdity as 
applying two names, known to be distinct, to the same 
people, within the space of four lines. If some idle and 
weakly written tale contained the inconsistency, the mode 
of interpreting it, which Bishop Patrick applies to the pas- 
sage before us, might be passed over, but even then more 
from its being of no importance than from its soundness 
or its propriety. But when we find this discrepancy in a 
work which professes to be inspired, it is highly desirable 
that such an inconsistency or discrepancy should be cleared 
up. Why have none of the commentators remarked on 
the singular circumstance of there being Ishmaelitish 
merchants at all, in the time when Joseph was sold into 
Egypt? Ishmael was Jacob's uncle, being brother to Isaac, 
Jacob's father. The family of Ishmael could not have in- 
creased to such an extent in the time of which the history 
treats. The mention of Ishmaelites, in the text before us, 
indicates that the writer lived many generations later, when 
Ishmaelitish merchants were well known. Still less likely 
is it that there were Midianitish merchants in those days ; 
for Midian was also one of the sons of Abraham, and fifty- 
four years younger than Isaac (see chap, xxv., v, 2.) At all 
events, the variation in the name of this tribe of merchants 
renders it impossible that Moses could have written the 
narrative, unless we suppose that, when he had it in his 
power to describe the matter accurately and definitely, he 
rather chose to relate it in such a manner as to puzzle all 
future ages as to its exact meaning."* 

Verse 35. — ^' All his daughters." What daughters had 
he besides Dinah ? In the Douay, the word " hell " is 
substituted for the word grave." The Hebrew is nSt^t!) 
(SHALE). Jacob, it is urged, believed his son was devoured 
by v»dld beasts, and, therefore, could have hardly expected 
to find him in his grave ; and by hell the Catholic fathers 
intend purgatory. I must refer my more precise readers to 
the various controversial works written by various shades of 



• Hebrew Recards, p. 145, 



134 



Catholic and Protestant divines, on the words " purgatory,'* 

limbo/' " hell/' and grave."* 

Verse 36. — Unto Potiphar, an officer of Pharaoh's, 
and captain of the guard.'' The word translated " officer" 
is D^^ID — which the Douay, Vulgate, Septuagint, and 
Syriac, all render eunuch."t Cahen makes Potiphar chef 
des executeurs,^^ as the correct rendering. Kalisch in his 
note agrees in this, giving ^' chief of the executioners." 
Septuagint makes him " head cook," archimageiro. The 
word anglicised as Pharaoh is a common appellation of 
the ancient rulers of Egypt, and signifies the sun." 

Chap, xxxviii. — It is indeed difficult to discover why 
such a chapter should, during the later centuries of advanced 
civilisation, be permitted to disgrace a book which is placed 
in the hands of our daughters for their instruction. Dom 
Calmet says, that on first perusal it strikes our minds as not 
of a nature for edification, but the hidden sense which ia 
shut up in it is as elevated as that of the mere letter 
appears low to carnal eyes. I deny that there is in this 
chapter any such elevated meaning derivable by any sensible 
interpretation. The record is in the first place unambigu- 
ously filthy and barbarous, without any redeeming feature. 
The whole of the chapter enables us to believe that the 
early traditions of the house of David formed a fitting pre- 
face to the life of that pious monarch, while we are obliged 
to wonder for what wise purpose the infinite Deity traces 
the genealogy of his only begotten son Jesus to so polluted 
a source. 

Chap, xxxix., v. 1. — This verse is a mere repetition of 
chap, xxxvii., v. 36. The narration in this chapter serves 
by way of contrast to heighten the efiect of the story 
told in the preceding chapter. Bible histories, with few 
exceptions, continue to place women in a degraded light. 

Verse 41. — See he hath brought in an Hebrew unto us." 
Verse 17, The Hebrew servant which thou hast brought 
to us." Chap, xli., v. 15, For indeed I was stolen away 

♦ See Fulke's defence against Martin, p. 128, and pp. 278 to 231; 
Parker, Society Edition, pp. 81 to 84. 

t See Lexicons, Breeslau, Gesenius 595, contra Parkhurst, 60^, 
Kalisch, Genesis, 617. 



ITS AFTHOESHTP ATTD ArTTTEyTTCTTT. 



135 



out of the land of the Hebrews." Chap, xli., v. 12, 
^'And there was there with us a young man, an Hebrew.'' 
" In the above passages the word ' Hebrew' is used in a 
familiar way, as if it were a well-known appellation of a 
fvhole people, well known even in Egypt — nay, as if the land 
of Canaan could already be spoken of by Joseph as the 
* land of the Hebrews,' so as to be readily understood by 
the Egyptians with whom he was speaking.'"* These are 
evidently expressions of a later age, for in Joseph's time 
there was yet no Hebrew people, nnd even in the time of 
Moses there was no land of the Hebrews.^' 

Chap. Ixi., v. 14. — In consequence of the omission in the 
Hebrew of certain letters, this verse is capable of at least 
sixteen different readings. f Our version says, that Joseph 
shaved himself, changed his own raiment, and came unto the 
king." The Douay says that 'Hhey shaved Joseph, and 
changed his apparel, and brought him unto the king." The 
Septuagint differs from both. 

Verse 45. — ^^And Pharaoh called Joseph's name Zaphnath- 
paaneah ; and he gave him to wife Asenath, the daughter 
of Poti-pherah priest of On. And Joseph went out over 
all the land of Eirypt." Our version says Pnaraoh called 
Joseph Zapnath-paaneah, and the margin renders this ^' a 
revealer of secrets." The Douay and Vulgate translate it 

Saviour of the world." Cahen says it is probably an 
Egyptian name of which the sense is unknown. The Sep- 
tuagint omits the words and Joseph went out over all the 
land of Egypt." 

Verse 56. — This famine was over the whole earth, so that 
the favoured family of Abraham were worse off than the 
Egyptians, to whom God gave seven years' notice to enable 
them to prepare against the coming trouble. The seven 
years of previous plenty seem to have been limited to 

Chap, xliii., v. 32. — How could it be considered an abo- 
mination for the Egyptians to eat with the Hebrews ? The 
latter were only the descendants of Abraham, few in number, 



• Colenso, Part ii , p. 206. 

t See Wall's Grounds for Revision, p. 551. 



136 



GENESIS i 



and the Egyptians could not have known of their existence 
until they made acquaintance with Joseph ; and by giving 
him the daughter of the high priest to wife, they had con- 
ferred great honour and favour on him — he was the first in 
the land, and the only Hebrew amongst them. The verse 
speaks as if of a custom well known. It is probable that 
the Egyptians did not eat with strangers. Herodotus says* 
that no Egyptian man or woman will kiss a Grrecian on the 
mouth, or use the knife, spit, or caldron of a Greek. 

Chap, xliv., V. 5. — The Douay commences this verse with 
the words, " the cup which you have stolen.'* 

Chap, xlv., V. 10. — Goshen." There is no such place 
or district known in Egypt — no profane writer mentions it.f 

Verse 18. — If Pharaoh knew them to be Hebrews and 
shepherds, how is this reconcileable with c, xliii. v. 42, and 
c. xlvi. V. 34? 

Chap, xlvi., vv. 8 to 15. — " All the souls of his sons and 
daughters were thirty and three." The names recorded in 
these verses only number thirty-two. The Talmudical 
writers, to account for the one deficient, suggest that 
lochebed, the mother of Moses, was born while Jacob's 
family were en route for Egypt.^ 

Verse 9. — ^^^Q, PheLXJA, is in Numbers, c. xvi., v. 1, 
VheLeTh, If this second name is not intended tor 
the other, then Genesis incorrectly states Eeuben's family. 

Verse 10. — ^^.^^Q^i, leMUAL ; and in Exodus, c. vi., 
V. 15, but in Numbers, c. xxvi., v. 12, and 1 Chronicles, c. vi., 
V. 24, he is called ^j^^r^^ N(?MUAL, IKIN, is in 

1 Chronicles, c. iv., v. 24rcalled lEIB. nm, TseHeE, 
is in Numbers, c. xxvi., v. 13, and in 1 Chronicles, c. iv., 
V. 24, n-^t, ZeEeH. 

Verse 10. — ITl^, AED, is omitted alto2:ether in Numbers, 
c. xxvi., V. 12, and from 1 Chronicles, c. iv., v. 24. 

Verse 11.— ptT^J, G^EShUN; in 1 Chronicles, c. vi., 
V. 16,§ is D^^X GeESh^M, two letters differing. 

* Euterpe, sec. 41. 

t See Kalisch, Genesis 679, and Cahen, Genese 159. 
J Cahen's Genese, 163; and Kalisch, 689. 

§ In the Hebrew this is in reality v. 1 of chap, v., the five preced-* 
fng verses belonging to chap. vi. 



ITS ATJTHOBSHIP ATsT) AUTHENTTCITT. 



137 



Col en so says- — " ' And the sons of Jadah, Er, and Onan, 
and Sbelah, and Pharez, and Zarah ; but Er and Onan died 
in the land of Canaan ; and the sons of Pharez were Hezron 
and Hamul.'— G. xlvi. 12. 

It appears to me to be certain that the writer here 
means to sav that Hezron and Hamul were horn in the 
land of Canaan, and were among the seventy persons (in- 
cluding Jacob himself, and Joseph, and his two sons) who 
came into Egypt with Jacob. 

" He repeats the words again and again : — ^ These are 
the names of the children of Israel, which came into Eofypt,' 
V. 8. ^ All the souls, that came rvith Jacob info Egypt, 
which came out of his loins, besides Jacob's sons' wives, were 
three score and six,' v 26 — which they would not be without 
Hezron and Hamul ; ' and the sons of Joseph, which were 
born him in Egypt, were two souls ; all the soula of the 
house of Jacob, which came into Egypt, were three score 
and ten.' — v. 27. 

So again we read — ^ These are the names of the children 
of Israel, which came into Egypt ; every man and his house- 
hold came with Jacob. And all the souls that came out of 
the loins of Jacob, were seventy souls ; for Joseph was in 
Egypt already.'— E. i. 1. 5. ^ Thy fathers 7vent down into 
Egypt with threescore and ten persons, and now the Lord 
thv Grod hath made thee as the stars of heaven for mul- 
titude.'— D. X. 22. 

I assume, then, that it is absolutely undeniable that the 
narrative of the Exodus distinctly involves the statement, 
that the sixty-six persons, ' out of the loins of Jacob,' men- 
tioned in G. xlvi., and no others, went down with him into 
Egypt. 

''Now Judah wsis forty -tsvo years old,* according to the 

* " Joseph was thirty years old. when he 'stood before Pharaoh,' 
as governor of the land of Eofypt, G. xli. 46 ; and from that time 
nine years elap?ed (seven of plenty and two of famine) before Jacob 
came down to Egypt. At that time, therefore, Joseph was thirty- 
r.ine years old. But Judah was about three years older than Joseph; 
for Judah was born in the fourth year of Jacob's double marriage, 
G. xxix 35., and Joseph in the seventh, G. xxx 2-^-26, c xxxi. 41. 
Hence Judah was forty two years old when Jacob went down to 
Egypt." 



138 



GENESIS : 



Btory when he went down with Jacob into Egypt. But if 

we turn, to G. xxxviii., we shall find that, in the course of 
these fortj-two years of Judah's life, the following events 
are recorded to have happened. 

*^ (1) Judah grows up, marries a wife — * at that time,' 
V. 1, that is, after Joseph's being sold into Egypt, when he 
was seventeen years old.' — G. xxxvii. 2, and when Judah, 
consequently, w^s, at least, twenty years old, and has, sepa- 
rately, three sons by her. 

(2) The eldest of these three sons grows up, is married, 
und dies. 

<^ The second grows to maturity (suppose in another year) 
marries his brother's widow, and dies. 

The third grows to maturity (suppose in another 
year still), but declines to take his brother's widow to wife. 

" She then deceives Judah himself, conceives by him, and 
indue time bears him twins, Pharez and Zarah. 

(3) One of these twins also grows to maturity, and has 
two sons, Hezron and Hamul, born to him, before Jacob 
goes down into Egypt. 

The above being certainly incredible, we are obliged to 
conclude that one of the two accounts must be untrue. Tet 
the statement, that Hezron and Hamul were born in the 
land of Canaan, is vouched so positively by the many pas- 
sages above quoted, which sum up the ^ seventy souls,' that, 
to give up this point, is to give up an essential part of the 
whole story. But then this point cannot be maintained, 
however essential to the narrative, without supposing that 
the other series of events had taken glace beforehand, which 
we have seen to be incredible."* 

The Eev. Dr. Grilesf observes on verses 8 to 26 : — 
" An error is found also in the other catalogue of Jacob's 
children, who accompanied him into Egypt. The names 
occupy from verse 8 to 25 of Genesis, chap. xlvi. In verse 
26 it is said : — 

" ^ All the souls that came with Jacob into Egypt, which 

♦ Colenso, Part I., chap ii., pp. 17-19. See also Spinoza, Tracta- 
tus Theologico Politicus, chap, ix., and Dr. McCaulj contra Colenso, 
pp. 3 to 15. 

t Hebrew Records, p. 191, 



ITS ATTTHOESniP ANB ATTTHENTICITT. 



139 



came out of his loins, besides JacoVs sons' wives, all the 
souls were three score and six. 

" This total is erroneous, for the names, added properly 
amount to sixty-seven ; and a still greater difference is 
found between the Hebrew text and the Septuagint, in the 
twenty- seventh verse ; the former makes ^ all the souls of 
the house of Jacob' to be * three score and ten,' whereas 
the latter states them, to have been seventy- five. 

<^ We might set aside the authority of the Septuagint as 
inferior to that of the Hebrew in such a matter, were it not 
that in St. Stephen's speech, in the Acts of the Apostles, 
chap. vii. v. 14, the number 27 is repeated] and an awkward 
dilemma is created, from which it is impossible to extricate 
ourselves, if these conflicting accounts, both written by in- 
spiration, are to be considered as having come down to us 
in their original state. This may, with justice, be called in 
question ; for Dean Shuckford, who supposes that the trans- 
cribers have added something in chap, xxxv., accuses them 
of having omitted something in chap, xlv^, of having added 
a verse in xlvi. 27, of the Septuagint, which is more full 
than the Hebrew, and, lastly, of having altered seventy into 
seventy-five, in chap. vii. of the Acts. It is difficult to 
imagine how a book, with which such liberties have been 
taken, can properly be regarded as an immacailate record. 
But the same mode of interpretation is entirely inapplicable 
to explain the remarkable fact, that, among those who accom- 
panied Jacob into Egypt, are enumerated in chap, xlvi., v. 21, 
ten sons of Benjamin, and in v. 12, two grandsons of Judah, 
Hezron and Hamul. Jacob surely went into Egypt soon 
after the famine began ; and Benjamin was then a lad, if we 
may trust the chroniclers, under twenty years of age. The 
grandsons of Judah, through his son Pharez, could not have 
Seen bom until many years later ; for Pharez, their father, 
was only two or three years old when the whole family first 
entered the land of their servitude." 

Kalisch says* — The text distinctly observes * All the 
souls of the house of Jacob that came into Egypt were 
seventy,' verse 27. The same statement is as clearly re- 



♦ Genesis, 686. 



140> 



GEOTSIS : 



f eated in other passages (Exodus i. 5,, Deut. x., v. 22.) 
t is therefore scarcely possible to doubt that this was a 
historical tradition general] J received amongst the Israelites. 
However the tenor of the present list certainly leads to the 
inference, that the total number of Hebrew settlers in Egypt 
was considerably larger than seventy. Eor first, Jacob had 
daughters (v. 7, and chap, xxxvii., v. 35). Secoii^lj, his sons 
came with their wives (v. 26) none of whom is here counted. 
Third, his sons had likewise daughters (v. 7). but Serah only 
the daughter of Asher is introduced." 

Verse 13.~niD, PhUE, is in 1 Chronicles, c vii., v. 1, 
nb^lD, Ph¥AE ; and IV, lUB, is IShlB. In the 

first case one letter is added, and in the second two are 
substituted for one omitted. 

Verse 16. — IVDJJ, TsePhlTJN, is in Numbers, c. xxvi., 
V. 15, TsJPhUN. The letter Yod is omitted. ]n!Jt4, 
ATsEeN,is in Numbers, c. xxvi., v. 16, *^2tb^, AZNI, every 
letter being changed except the first. "^Tllb^, AEUDI, is 
in Numbers, c. xxvi., v, 17, Hl^bi, AETJD, omitting the final 
Yod. 

Verse 17.— mtU*^, IShUE, is omitted in Numbers, c. xxvi., 
V. 44, but is inserted in 1 Chronicles, c. vii., v. 30. Heber 
and Malchiel, here put as the sons of Beriah, are by Jose- 
phus specially marked as the sons of Asher.* 

Verse 20. - The Septuagint adds in this verse, for chil- 
dren of Ephraim and Manasseh, five names not given in our 
version — viz , Machir, Galaad, Soutalaam, Taam, and Edom. 

Verse 21. — "^Plt^, AHI, is in Numbers, c. xxvi., v. 38, 
D"^^n«, AHIEeM. QND^, MePhIM, is in Numbers, c. xxvi., 
V. 39, written QDIiDti), ShePhUPheM. D^DH, HePhIM, is 
in Numbers, c xxvi., v. 39, DQin, HUPheM. These two 
latter names are in 1 Chronicles, c vii., v. 12, put as children 
of Ir, while in Genesis and Numbers they are children of 
Benjamin. 

Verse 21.-^32 (BeKeli), (G^EA), and trts^ 

(EASh), are all omitted in Numbers, c. xxvi., v. 38. In 1 
Chronicles, c. vii., v. 6 (Beker), Becher is inserted, but the 
other two are omitted, and an entirely new name (Jedaiel) 

* Anticjuitic^s, c. vii., sec. 4. 



ITS AUTHORSHIP AND AITTftENTICITY. 141 



IB added. In 1 Chronicles, c. viii., vv. 1 and 2, the reader 
will find another list of the children of Benjamin which 
contradicts the whole of the other lists, only two of the 
names corresponding. Becher (BeKeR), who is in this verse 
put as a son of Benjamin, is in Numbers, c. xxvi., v. 35, 
reckoned as a son of Ephraim. Naaman and Ard, in this 
verse called sons of Benjamin, are in Numbers, c. xxvi., v. 40, 
and in 1 Chronicles, c. viii., v. 3, designated sons of Bela, 
but Chronicles substitutes ^"T^ (ilDeE) for (AEeD). 

Ail the souls were 14." The Septuagint has 18." 

Verse 23. — Q'^tyn (HeShIM) is in Numbers, c. xxvi., 
V. 42, written DnTd? (ShUHeM). 

The reader will see from the above that not only do the 
lists severally given in this chapter, and in Numbers and 
Chronicles, differ from each other in spelling the various 
names to which attention has been drawn, but, as Kalisch 
observes, names introduced in Genesis are omitted in Num- 
bers, and new names are introduced in Numbers not to be 
found in the Grenesis list. The list in Chronicles deviates 
from and contradicts both. The list of names in the Sep- 
tuagint contains many variations of names not above noticed. 

^^In verse 34 it is said, as a reason for the Israelites 
being placed in the land of Goshen, that ^ every shepherd 
is an abomination to the Egyptians.' But it appears, from 
every other part of the history of Joseph and Pharaoh, that 
there was no such enmity between them. This is also the 
opinion of Dr. Shuckford, whose account of the matter is as 
follows : — 

6( ( There is, indeed, one passage in Genesis which seems 
to intimate that there was that religious hatred, which the 
Egyptians were afterwards charged with, paid to creatures 
even in the days of Joseph ; for we are informed that he 
put his brethren upon telling Pharaoh their profession, in 
order to have them placed in the land of Goshen, for or 
because, ^ every shepherd is an abomination to the Egvptians,' 
Genesis, xlvi., v. 34. I must freely acknowledge that I 
cannot satisfy myself about the meaning of this passage ; 1 
cannot see that shepherds were really, at this time, an 
abomination to the Egyptians ; for Pharaoh himself had his 
- shepherds, and, when he ordered Joseph to place his brethren 



142 



genesis: 



ill the land of Goshen, he was so far from disapproving of 
their employment, that he ordered him, if he knew any men 
of activity amongst them, that he should make them rulers 
of his cattle ; nay, the Egyptians were, at this time, shep- 
herds themselves as well as the Israelites, for we are told, 
when their money failed, they brought their cattle of all 
sorts unto Joseph, to exchange them for corn, and, among 
the rest, their flocks of the same kind with those which 
the Israelites were to tell Pharaoh that it was their pro- 
fession to take care of, as will appear to any one that will 
consult the Hebrew text in the places referred to. Either, 
therefore, we must take the expression that every shepherd 
was an abomination to the Egyptians to mean no more than 
that they thought meanly of the employment, that it was a 
lazy, idle, and inactive profession, as Pharaoh seemed to 
question whether there were any men of activity amongst 
them, when he heard what their trade was ; or, if we take 
the words to signify a religious aversion to them, which doe?, 
indeed, seem to be the true meaning of the expression, from 
the use made of it in other parts of Scripture, then I do 
not see how it is reconcilable with Pharaoh's inclination to 
employ them himself, or with the Egyptians being many of 
them, at this time, of the same profession themselves, which 
the heathen writers agree with Moses in supposing them to 
be ' [Diod. 8ic., lib. i]. 

*^ ' Though learned men have observed that there are several 
interpolations in the books of the Scriptures, which were 
not the words of the Sacred Writers, some persons, affecting 
to show their learning, when they read over the ancient 
MSS., would sometimes put a short remark in the margin, 
which they thought might give a reason for, or clear the 
meaning of, some expression in the text against which they 
placed it, or to which they adjoined it ; and from hence it 
happened, now and then, that the transcribers from manu- 
scripts so remarked upon did, through mistake, take a mar- 
ginal note or remark into the text, imagining it to be a part 
of it. Whether Moses might not end his period in this 
place with the words, that ye may dwell in the land of 
Goshen; and whether what follows, for every shepherd is 
an abomination to the Egyptians, may not have been added 



ITS ATJTHOESHIP AKD AUTHENTICITY. 143 



to the text in this way, is entirely submitted to the judg- 
ment of the learned.' [Connexion, Book 5, vol. i., p. 341.] 

" The learned writer of this extract is more correct in his 
statement of the difficulty, than in its solution. It is a 
principle in criticism to consider a book as free from inter- 
polation, until it is proved that interpolations have certainly 
been made. The charge of interpolation is brought against 
the books of the Old Testament for no other reason, than to 
reduce them into harmony with the preconceived opinion 
that they were written by the authors to whom they are 
commonly ascribed. In the present instance, there has 
been no interpolation. The compiler, relating the honours 
paid to the family of Jacob in Egypt, and endeavouring to 
harmonise them with the state of things in his own times, 
1,000 years later, when the Egyptians, by their religious ab- 
surdities, had been made to entertain an enmity towards 
shepherds, has given us a description which, in this particu- 
lar, is inconsistent with itself. In short, the Egyptians 
held shepherds in aversion in the fifth, but not in the 
fifteenth century before the Christian era,"* 

It is scarcely necessary to add to the above ; but, if it 
were, it would be hard to reconcile there being an abomina- 
tion with the eleventh verse of chap, xlvii., in which it is 
stated that Pharaoh gave these very people the best of the 
land, in the land of Eameses,'* 

Herodotust says that goatherds were held by the 
Egyptians in high honour. 

Chap, xlvii., v. 2. — And he took some of his brethren, 
even five men." The Douay says: Five men, also the 
last of his brethren.' ' Bellamy^ says ; Some writers, in 
endeavouring to give the meaning of the word HlipQ 
(MeQTsE) rendered some,'' have said — 1st, he took the 
first that came to hand 2nd, the meanest looking ; " 
3rd, ^^the best made and finest looking;" 4th, five of 
the oldest;*' 5th, **some of the eldest and some of the 



* Hebrew Records, p. 124. 

f Euterpe, 46; Cahen, Genese, 165. 

X Genesis, 163, and see Kalisch, 696. 



144 



GE^^ESIS : 



younge«t.'' Eashi translates it, ^^the least or weakest.* 
Jarhi interprets it, ^' the youngest of his brothers."* 

Verses 13 to 26. — " What purpose did the penetration and 
shrewdness of Joseph serve? What advantage did the 
Egyptian people derive from his predictions ? and what 
greater misfortunes could have befallen them than those 
wliich really happened; since without Joseph's interference 
they would have themselves possessed sufficient corn from 
the years of plenty to subsist in the years of famine ? In 
what light, therefore, have wo to view his character? Does 
it not, at first glance, appear despotic, cruel, and heartless, 
anxious only for the aggrandisement of the royal power, 
but unfeeling for the miserable condition of the people? Is 
not his person stained by the execrable meanness of sacri- 
ficing tiie happiness of a nation to a subservient sycophancy 
for a tyrannical dynasty ? "t 

Verse 31. — And Israel bowed himself upon the bed's 
head.'' The Douay, following the Vulgate, reads: Israel 
adored God turning to the bed's head." The Septuagint 
makes the bed into a staff, and the epistle to the Hebrews, 
chap, xi., V. 21, says: ''By faith, Jacob, when he was a 
dying, worshipped, leaning upon the top of his staif."J 
Spinoza says the error arises solely from the use of the 
Masoretic vowel points ; the word niD?2 (MeTE) meaning 
either bed or staif, according to the points added to it.§ 
Cahen regards this difference as a proof that the Septuagint 
version is more ancient than the vowel points. || 

Chap, xlviii., v. 22. — Jacob's life contains no account of 
his wars with the Amorites, but rather represents him as 
of a very unwarlike temperament. Instead of the words, 
I have given thee one portion above thy brethren," the 
Septuagint has, '' I will give thee choice Sikima." The 
words in John, c. iv., v. 5, seem to refer to this, but then it 



• Cahen, Genese, 165. 

f Kalisch. Genesis, p. 698; see also Presbyter Anglicanus on the 
Pentateuch, p. 102. 

J See Kalisch, Genesis, p. 708, and Jenning'g Jewish Antiquities^ 
p. 360. 

§ Tract atus Theologico Politicus, chap- vii. 
il Gonese, p. 170. 



ITS AUTHOESHIP A^) A^THE^'TICITT. 



145 



would seem to identify the land with that bought of Hamor 
(see chap, xxxiii., v. 19.*) 

The storj of Joseph would seem to have been compiled 
in the later times of the Jews, when there was a more 
minute division of property, and the whole nation was com- 
posed of the triple elements of shepherds, agriculturists, an^ 
traders. It attempts to give the traditionary notion of the 
patriarchal times, strangely mixed up with more modern 
ideas. 

Now, if this famine pressed so severely on the family 
of Jacob, who is represented to have been left in possession 
of the whole country of Canaan, how utterly inadequate 
were the means taken to remedy the evil — a wearisome 
journey of some hundred miles through the desert to pro- 
cure a few sacks of corn, that would have been almost con- 
sumed in the transit. Not a hint is given of danger, though 
the journey was long and tedious, the way through the de- 
sert, and the time a period of famine. On the contrary, 
the fictitious element is carried out, as if they had been 
travelling from Dan to Beersheba, in the tranquil days of 
Solomon. 

*'And then too, when Joseph sends for his father, the 
Prince of Canaan, he sends clothes and money, and provi- 
sions, and conveyances for himself and family, as if he had 
been in the depth of poverty. But not a word about his 
subjects, the people of Canaan, or his numerous dependents 
— they are left behind to shift for themselves ; it is his own 
family only that appear to enter Egypt with him ! Either, 
then, this history of Joseph formed no part of the original 
book of Genesis, or the statements of the great wealth and 
consequence of Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, and Esau are mere 
fictions. It is impossible to reconcile the two statements, 
they so clearly contradict each other. 

But what were the merchants of Tyre and Sidon and 
other seaports doing during this famine ? for unless they 
carried corn to the most distant regions, the inhabitants 
must have all perished, for the famine was in all lands. 
What then could have induced the sons of Jacob to wander 



* See Cahen: Genese, p. 173. 



146 



GENESIS t 



all the way through the desert into Egypt, when supplies 
could have been procured at the distance of a few miles ? 
But it is useless to take up time with these minor inconsis- 
tencies, when the account contains so much that is glaringly 
contradictory. It is stated ^ that the famine was over all the 
face of the earth, and that all countries came to Egypt to 
buy corn; ' allowing that there is any truth in the narra- 
tive, this must be a gross exaggeration — but quite in the 
style of hyperbolic Orientalism ! 

*^Now, we would ask how could Egypt feed the whole 
^rth, when it was itself famishing, and obliged to subsist 
for seven years on the surplus produce of seven years of 
abundance ? It matters not whether, in the years of famine, 
the land was wholly unproductive, or yielded only one-half 
of its usual return. Under any limitation, the narrative 
asserts contradictions and impossibilities; no amount of 
abundance in Egypt could have remedied the evil of even a 
partial famine."* 

Chap xlix., V. 3. — Eeuben, thou art my firstborn, my 
might, and the beginning of my strength, the excellency of 
dignity, and the excellency of power." Bellamy, in lieu 
of beginning of my strength," reads, beginning of my 
sorrow." Instead of excellence of dignity and the excel- 
lence of power," the Septuagint represents Reuben as self- 
willed and arrogant. t 

Verse 5. — " Simeon and Levi are brethren ; instruments 
of cruelty are in their habitations." Kalisch has, " An in- 
strument of cruelty is their burning rage." Cahen, ^^les in- 
struments de violence sont leur parente,^^ The Douay, 

vessels of iniquity, waging war.'' 

Verse 6. — They digged down a wall." Kalisch has, 
*Hhey hamstrung oxen." Cahen, ils ont coupe le jarret 
au taureauJ^ 

Bellamy thus renders verse 6. — Into their council thou 
shalt not come, O my soul ; to their congregation, be thou 
not united, mine honour ; for in their anger they slew men ; 
and for their pleasure they extirpated the bull. J ' O my 

• The Pentateuch Controversy, pp. 105, 106. 
f Kalisch, Genesis, p. 732; Cahen, Genese, p. 174. 
% New Translation, p. 173. 



ITS AUTHOESHIP AISTD AUTHENTICITY. 147 



soul, come not thou into their secret.' This passage, as it 
stands in the common version, affords us no information ; 
it is altogether inexplicable ; it cannot possibly be applied to 
the secret of the slaughter of the Shechemites by Simeon and 
Levi. Some commentators have said that this clause should 
be translated thus : * Into their council, Oh my soul, thou 
didst not come;' but as the verb i^lH (TheBA) is 
not the second person preter of the verb, but the second 
person future, it cannot be so translated ; and therefore does 
not refer to any secret concerning the slaying of the 
Shechemites. 

(BeSeDeM.) rendered secret, properly means 
council; Jer. vi. 11. — xxiii. 18, viz., ^ Into their council thou 
ehalt not come ; O my soul.' 

^< tTi^^b^ (Aish) rendered man, is a general term ; it means 
mankind, Job. xii. 10 ; the man, 1 Sam. xiii. 6; Jud. xx. 17. 

^ And in their self-will they digged down a wall,' But 
the word (ShTJE) never means a wall ; its meaning is 
a bull, throughout the Scripture. 

" Hence it is that the translators, not knowing how to 
apply the word shor, a bull, have concluded that this passage 
was applied by the sacred writer to the violence done by the 
sons of Jacob, and the manifest displeasure shown by him 
concerning the act they had committed. But this cannot 
he admitted, for the patriarch had shown his displeasure near 
fifty years before this period, when this total departure from 
the commands of Grod under that dispensation, gave birth to 
the slaughter of the Shechemites, I say a departure from 
the commands of Grod, from the positive precepts of that dis- 
pensation it was, which caused him to say, ' thou shalt not 
come into their council.' Besides, it cannot be admitted 
that Jacob, for near fifty years from the time of that trans- 
action, never came into the assembly of his sons. But there 
evidently was no such meaning in the mind of the patriarch ; 
he could not come into the secret assembly, or council, of 
that which had been transacted at so remote, or any past 
period ; there was no necessity for his council or approba- 
tion. 

" Is'either would it be of any consequence to posterity to 
know that they slew a bull. Thus, though we have the true 



148 



translation of the word shor, by bull ; still we are at a loss 
to know its true application. 

".Qili^m (UBeRTzeNeM) is rendered self-will, but 
anger and self-will, as here applied, are the same ; if they 
slew a man in their anger or self-will, they dug down a wall 
in their anger or self-will. This word means pleasure, 
desire, delight, to be gratified. Neh. ix. 37 ; 2 Chron. xv. 15 ; 
Prov. xi. 20 ; it reads, and for their pleasure. 

* They digged down a wall.' This clause cannot be un- 
derstood ; for if in their self-will they dug down a wall, it 
certainly was of too little consequence for the sacred writer 
to have committed it to posterity. It is proper here to in- 
form those who do not understand the Hebrew, that the 
word "SW shor, a bull, which the translators have ren- 
dered by wall, has the very same consonants as shur, a 
wall, and as the vowels [by vowels, Bellamy means only the 
Masoretic vowel-points], which vary the meaning and appli- 
cation (as in all languages) are not written between the con- 
sonants, as is the custom in the western or European lan- 
guages, but under the consonants ; the translators who 
have not attended to this most important branch of Hebrew 
learning, have rendered this word, which throughout the 
scriptures means a bull, by shur, which always means a 
wall. See 2 Sam. vi, 13 ; Weh. v. 18 ; Job vi. 5 ; Exod. xxi. 18 ; 
2 Sam, xxii. 30 ; Job xxi. 11 ; Jer. xxv. 10. 

" Some commentators also, not knowing what to make of 
the passage as it stands in the common version, have taken 
an unpardonable liberty with the sacred letter, by translat- 
ing "y\XO shor, a bull, by (SheE) a prince ; but to render 
shor, a bull, by saar, a prince, after the manner of Kennicott 
and others who have followed him, is altogether inconsistent 
with the language ; it has no such meaning in any part of 
scripture. The error committed in the English, and in all 
the European translations, is equally condemn able ; for 
there cannot be a greater contrariety than between a wall 
and a bull. We shall, however, find the original to be per- 
fectly consistent with good sense, consequently with the 
meaning of the sacred writer, without rendering shor, a bull, 
by shur, a wall, or by saar, a prince. 

^^^V (GneQETJ) is translated, ' they digged down 



ITS AUTHOESHIP AISTD ATJTnE^'TICITY. 



149 



but this word does not properly mean * to dig;* neither is 
tliere any word for ^ down it is one word, and cannot have 
this sense in any part of scripture. It truly means ^ to cut 
in pieces, hough, hamstring/ Josh, ix, 9 ; 2 Sam. yiii. 4 ; 
1. Chron. xviii, 4." 

Verse 10. — The sceptre shall not depart from Judah, 
nor a lawgiver from between his feet, until Shiloh come ; 
and unto him shall the gathering of the people be." Kalisch 
renders this, The sceptre shall not depart from Judah nor 
the ruler's staff from between his feet, even when they shall 
come to Shiloh, and to him shall be submission of nations," 
The Douay, The sceptre shall not be taken away from 
Judah, nor a ruler from his thigh, till he come that is sent, 
and he shall be the expectation of nations." 

Kalisch says,* As the empire of Judah ceased in the 6th 
century before the present era, and the tribe of Judah never 
afterwards obtained any permanent or brilliant political 
position, or exercised government over other branches of the 
Hebrew, and was in the time of the Maccabees, subordinate to 
leaders from the tribe of Levi, the prophecy would be unful- 
filled were it referred to an event later than the Babylonian 
captivity. The Messianic interpretation must indeed rest 
on feeble arguments, since it forces its advocates to the as- 
sertion that intervals and interruptions of dominion are not 
excluded by the words ^ the sceptre shall not dopart from 
Judah until the Messiah comes.' "t 

One 2s ikelsburger.t writing against the *^ Society for Con- 
version of the Jews," says — It is universally acknowledged 
that Shiloh should come from the seed of David, who is 
from the seed of Judah, and great pains have been taken 
by writers of the iSTew Testament to convince us, by long 
genealogical tables, that Joseph was from the seed of David, 
and was from the seed of Judah ; and yet this same Joseph 
is not believed to be the father of Jesus. Tou believe (upon 
what grounds I am not aware) that Jesus was also from the 
seed of Judah. Let it be admitted for the sake of argu- 
ment. Xow, mark the concluding words of the verse 

* Genesis, p. 750. See also Cahen. Geuese, 175. 

t See R. Cooper's "Bible and its Evidences," p. 200. 

X Koul Jacob, pp. 15 to 17. 



150 



GENESIS : 



' Unto him (Shiloh, whom you believe to be Jesus) shall the 
gathering of the people be.' What can this mean, more or 
less, than that the people (then scattered) shall be gathered 
to him, as their head and ruler, and lawgiver ? Then, if 
Jesus be the Messiah, or, if the Messiah be from the seed 
of Judah, and ^ unto him shall the gathering of the people 
be,' of course the sceptre will remain in Judah at his 
coming. 

" According to these words of Jacob, it must be concluded 
that the sceptre shall not depart from Judah, y?'om the time 
they are made use of hy Jacob, until (and not before) Shiloh 
shall come (whom you believe to be Jesus). Now, Judah 
had no sceptre, nor lawgiver, even in Jacob's time, nor for 
many years after ; and many hundred years before the birth 
of Jesus the Jews had no sceptre nor lawgiver ; they were a 
conquered nation, and in bondage in Egypt, and in Babylon, 
and were subject to kings and laws of other nations. Even 
at the time of the second temple, they were also without a 
sceptre, and subject to other kings. Then if the sceptre 
did depart before the coming of Jesus, and it was to 
depart after his coming, what must we make of Jacob's 
blessing?" 

Paley, in his chapter headed Prophecy, as an auxi- 
liary evidence of Christianity,'' discreetly omits all mention 
of this verse. Drc Hart well Horne treats the prophecy as 
fulfilled. He says, When theMessiah came the sceptre had 
departed from Judah," but the learned reconciler of Bible 
difficulties omits to notice that the sceptre's departure had 
taken place more than once, and long previous to the birth 
of Jesus.* 

There is no trace of sceptre or lawgiver in Judah during 
the captivity in Egypt. In the time of Moses and Aaron, 
it was rather Levi than Judah whose house was honoured 
with regal or chief judicial authority. From Moses to 
David a variety of judges and rulers arose from the different 
tribes, Judah taking no special pre-eminence. 

Prom the captivity to the Christian era, says Godwyn,t 
the state of the Jews became very confused. Sometimes 

* Introduction to Bible, 8tli edition, 455. 

i Godwyn's Hebrew Rites and Customs, p. 3. 



ITS AUTHORSHIP AKD AUTHENTICITY. 151 

they were ruled by deputies and viceroys, subject to the 
Persian authority. In the time of Judas Maccabeus, the 
tribe of Levi held the chief office, and this continued until 
shortly prior to the reign of Herod the Askalonite. 

Verse 14. — Crouching down between two burdens.'' 
TheDouay has, **lying down between the borders.*' Bellamy, 

resting "among the sheepfold." Cahen, se couche entre 
les etables^^ 

Verse 18.— This verse seems entirely unconnected with 
the rest of the chapter, and its obscurity has induced some 
critics to regard it as an interpolationt. Sir Wm. Drum- 
mondj regarded the prophecies of this chapter as astrono- 
mical symbols, and in his CEdipus Judaicus/' he certainly 
makes out a case, with which his antagonists failed to deal. 
The following extract illuslrabes the nature of his views : — 
" According to Aben Ezra, the figure of a man was painted 
on the ensign of the tribe of Eeuben, and this man is sup- 
posed by Kircher to have been Aquarius. In fact, we find 
that Jacob calls Reuben his first-born, the beginning of his 
strength, etc., and these epithets apply very well to the sun 
in the commencement of his course, after he has passed the 
winter solstice. The sign of Aquarius is typified by a man 
with a pitcher, whence he pours forth water, Eeuben is 
said to be as unstable as water. It is then remarked that he 
shall not excel because he went up to his father's bed, and 
we are thus reminded that he had lain with Bilhah. The 
oriental astronomers, and amongst others Ulug Beg, still de- 
signate a remarkable asterism in the sign of Aquarius by 
the name of Bula, or Bulha. This asterism rises while the 
sun is yet in Capricorn, which is the domicile of Saturn, 
the star of Israel ; and it sets towards the end of July, when 
Aquarius sets also with his head foremost. 

" Simeon and Levi are brethren. 
In the astrological calendar at the first degree of the 
decan of Pisces, we find the following words : — ' Duo viri 
unum caput habentes.' 

' Instruments of cruelty are in their habitations.' 

* See Kalisch, Genesis, 755 

t Kalisch, Genesis 758. Bellamy, 180. 

X Sir W. Druminond's CEdipus Judaicus, cap. 49 Genesis. 



152 



GENESIS: 



All the constellations which are considered as noxious 
are seen above the horizon while the sun is in Pisces, 
It is then that Sagitta rises, that Scorpius, according to 
Columella, begins to set, accompanied with tempests, and 
that Andromeda^ not yet delivered by Perseus, regards the 
monster that threatens to devour her. But this is not 
all ; the descent of Pisces is fixed by Columella, for the 
14th of the Ides of October, and consequently their dis- 
appearance was the prelude to the passage of the sun 
into the sign of Scorpius, when the terrible reign of 
Typhon commenced. No sign appears to have been con- 
sidered of more malignaDt influence than Pisces ; and 
it appears from the astrological calendar, that the em- 
blems accompanying this constellation were chiefly in- 
dicative of death and violence. ' Oh my soul, come not 
into their secret.' I am inclined to think that^D (SeD), 
does not signify a secret^ but a fetter, or a shackle. It will 
be recollected, that the fishes are united by a bond, or 
shackle. ^ Unto their assembly, my honour, be thou not 
united.' The word "nnS (KeBeE), which is here translated 
honour, denotes in its primitive sense the action of light in 
irradiation. * For in their anger they slew a man.' Jacob 
seems to attribute all the effects produced by the rising of 
Scorpius to the descent of Pisces. Columella fixes the pas- 
sage of the sun into Scorpius on the 13th of the calends of 
November. We shall find that this period nearly corres- 
ponds with that in which Osiris was feigned to have been 
slain by Typhon, and when the death of Orion was attributed 
to the sting of the scorpion. The brilliant constellation of 
Orion sets shortly after the descent of Pisces, and imme- 
diately after the rising of Scorpius. * And in their self-will 
they digged down a wall.' This interpretation rests upon 
the authority of Jerome ; but 1 conceive it to be erroneous, 
and I appeal against it to the Septuagint, the Samaritan, 
and to the Hebrew copy itself. I translate, in their self-will 
they castrated a bull. Now the oriental astronomers repre- 
sent Scorpius as devouring the genitals of Taurus ; and, 
indeed, the stars called testiculi Tauri set precisely when 
Scorpius rises. 

According to all the traditions, a lion was painted on 



ITS ATTTHOESHIP AND AUTHENTICITY. 153 



the standard of Judah; and I can have no hesitation in 
agreeing with Kircher, that the sign of Leo was thereby in- 
dicated. ' Thou art he/ says the text, * whom thy brethren 
shall praise.' While Taurus was the first of the signs, the 
summer solstice took place when the sun was in Leo ; and 
that season of his highest elevation was held in the greatest 
honour. The sun in Leo was adored by the Egyptians as 
the king Osiris ; by the Syrians as the lord Adonis ; by 
the Tyrians as Melecharets, ^King of the Earth and by the 
Greeks as Hercules, vanquisher of the Nemean Lion. The 
sun being at his greatest altitude in Leo, the brothers of 
Judah are said to bow down before him In the Indian 
sphere, in the second decan of the sign of Leo, a man is re- 
presented with a crown on his head and a lance in his hand. 
< Judah is a lion's whelp, ... he couched as a lion.' 
The progress of the sun through the sign of Leo was, accord- 
ing to Aratus, represented as a couching lion. 

" * The sceptre shall not depart from Judah, nor a lawgiver 
from between his feet, until Shiloh come.' The constellation 
of Cepheus, King of Ethiopia, is still represented as a man 
with a crown on his head, and with a sceptre in his hand. 
This constellation rises, according to Columella, on the 7th 
of the Ides of July. Thus Cepheus, in the course of some 
days, comes to rise under Leo, of which it continues to be 
the paratanellon until the sun enters the sign of Scorpius. 

The word ppn?2) (M^H^QeQ), which we translate, a law- 
giver , is shown by Bochart to be a coriKiption of pn (HeQ), 
hyk, which was the old Ethiopian word for a king, W e may 
then suppose, with some appearance of reason, that Hyk 
was the ancient Ethiopian and Egyptian name for the con- 
stellation of Cepheus, or King of Ethiopia, which, being seen 
very low in the northern hemisphere when the sun is in 
Leo, may be figuratively said to be under the feet of the lion. 
'Until Shiloh come.* The king with the sceptre sets about 
the time that Scorpius rises. In Scorpius there are two 
stars which the oriental astronomers call Shulet ; and the 
brightest of these is named Shuleh. ' Binding his foal unto 
the vine, and his ass's colt unto the choice vine.' In the 
first decan of the sign of Leo in the Persian sphere I find 
the head of a horse and the head of an ass, and in the second 



154 



and third decan their middle and hinder parts." [The ass ol 
Silenus, the companion of Bacchus, has been represented 
with its head bound round with vine leaves and grapes. 
Bacchus, Osiris, and the sun, are identical.] 

Michel Nicolas says, One of the most celebrated pro- 
phecies of the Old Testament is that of the dying Jacob, as 
to the future destinies of his numerous posterity. We are 
assured by many critics, amongst others by G-ramberg, that 
this prophecy was not written until an epoch when the 
children of Israel already formed twelve distinct and estab- 
lished tribes in the land of Canaan. The 28th verse of the 
xlix. chapter, is sufficient to betray the later origin of the 
prediction, evidently written, at least in its present form, 
after the events of which it speaks. It proves that the 
©ditor of the passage, or at least the one who retouched it, 
knew of the existence of the twelve tribes." Nicolas does not, 
however, regard the ex post facto prophecy as fraudulent. 
He says, ''The prophecies after the event are the result of 
the national mind celebrating the virtues of the ancient 
&thers of the people. The prophecy of the dying Jacob is 
a popular hymn, reciting the destinies of the twelve tribes, 
and which, by an ingenious fiction, the poet has put in 
the mouth of their common father. In eflfect, we know 
that poesy has often taken for its theme the recollection 
of some event which has actually occurred, but has become 
embellished by the popular imagination."* 

Chap, i., V. 10. — '* Threshing floor of Atad, which is 
beyond Jordan." Cahen says, " Does that refer to the right 
bank or the left ? Hebron being between Egypt and the 
river Jordan, one cannot see why the procession came near 
the river." '* Est-il question de la rive droite ou de la rive 
gauche ? Hebrone etant entre I'Egypte et le Jourdain ; 
on ne voit pas pourquoi le cortege de Jacob est venu pr^s 
de ce fleuve." 

In concluding a commentary on Genesis, it is not unna- 
tural that I should be expected to make an endeavour to 
account for the Hebrew Eecord containing traditions which, 



♦ Etudes sur la Bible, pp. 315 and 316. 
4 Genese, 180. S«e Kalisch 776. 



ITS ATJTHOESHIP AND ATTTHEIS^TICITT. 15S 



in whole or part, and with somewhat varied accessories, may 
be traced in the mythical lore of nations more ancient than 
the Jews. In striving to meet this expectation I am to a 
considerable extent indebted to an anonymous but most able 
writer,* who seeks to show that whatever literature the 
Jewish people may have at one time possessed having been 
lost during their troubles, the restoration occurred at a 
period when communication of ideas had taken place be- 
tween Egypt, Greece, Italy, India, and the Jewish scribes, 
and that consequently an embodiment and mingling of 
foreign tradition might reasonably be anticipated in a volume 
aided in its compilation by, if not entirely resulting Irom, 
the memories of the ancient men of the Jews, whose brains 
had received impressions of wonders and miracles from tl e 
Ganges and the Nile, impressions mingled with and modi- 
fied by the teachings of Babylonian masters. It is admitted 
on all hands that the chief men amongst the Jews were cap- 
tives in Babylon from the time of Nebuchadnezzar until at 
least the sixth year of the reign of Darius. The last chapter 
of Chronicles fixes the term of Jewish captivity at seventy 
years, thus giving ample time in a new generation for inocu- 
lation of new ideas and new faiths, a result rendered the 
more easy because the use of the Hebrew language as a 
vernacular was entirely lost, and Syro-Chaldaic had become 
the popular dialect at the time of the return from captivity. 
The critical knowledge of Hebrew could have rested \^ith 
but few, and these, as Spinoza tells us, have left neither 
grammars nor lexicons to enable us to judge of the extent 
of their knowledge. Christian controversialists often insist 
on the care taken by the Jews of their sacred records, but 
it is evident by the state of the Hebrew text, as illustrated 
by Dr. Wall and others, that the care has not been suJQScient 
to preserve it from great corruption, and it is certain that 
during several centuries care was not and could not have 
been manifested by the Jews for the preservation of their 
literature. The licentiousness of the most powerful of the 
Jewish monarchs, the disturbed reigns of others, and the 
idolatry of most, leave little foundation for supposing any 



♦ What and How of the Eternal Worker, pp. 163 to 177, 



156 



GENESIS t 



rojal guardianship, and the finding of a previously unknown 
book by Hilkiah is strong evidence against much care on 
the part even of tlie priesthood (whose special duty should 
have been the preservation of their sacred writings.) Bishop 
Marsh says,* ''Whether the temple copy of the law was 
rescued from destruction when Jerusalem w-as taken by 
Nebuchadnezzar it is difficult at present to determine. It 
appears from the second Book of Chronicles that the sacred 
vessels of the temple were either destroyed or carried to 
Babylon. But neither in this place nor in the second book 
of Kings, nor in the fifty second chapter of Jeremiah, where 
the vessels of the temple are minutely described, do we 
find any account of the Book of the Law. In that 
apocryphal work which we call the second book of 
Esdras, the unknown author says, * Thy law is burnt, 
therefore no man knoweth the thing concerning thee/ 
If this account were correct, not only the Temple copy of 
the Law, but all other copies of the law must have been des- 
troyed at the taking of Jerusalem. If after the Babylonish 
captivity, when Ezra was restoring the Temple worship, 
no man knew the things of the law, no copy of it could 
have been left." Dr. Marsh thinks this improbable, but the 
view here quoted seems correct. If J eremiah had preserved 
the book, surely he would not have passed by so important 
a matter, when recording others most trivial in comparison* 
Assuming the destruction of the Jewish literature, then 
those who re-wrote,t must have collected from all quarters, 
and under great difficulties. The Hebrew language having 
been neglected, the captives speaking their captors' tongue — 
Babylonian, Egyptian, Brahminic, and Hebrew legends 
would become commingled. From the Persians the myth 
of Ormuzd and Ahriman would form the basis of the evil 
spirit resisting God, and deteriorating his creation. From 
the Hindoos the fable of Krishna incarnate to redeem the 
earth, gives colour to all the Messiah legends. From the 
Greeks their astro-mythology, giving myths containing more 
oetry than the Jewish mind could grasp. These, modified 
y their own ignorance and barbarism, and moulded on to 



♦ 34 Lecture, p. 56, 



\ See page 57. 



ITS AUTHOESHIP ATO AUTHENTICITY. 157 

such history as their best men remembered, enabled the 
Jews to frame for us the Bible which so long has been 
maintained as the centre and standing point of, and circle 
wdthin which, ail knowledge was to be found, and outside 
which it was damnation to venture. A Bible incoherent in 
its narrative, often uselessly repeating itself; defective in its 
chronology ; inaccurate in its geography ; confused in its 
relation to general history ; and utterly worthless as a code 
of morality. For the rude style and more than questionable 
morality of the Book of Genesis, many writers have found 
it necessary to apologise. Some have said that the Jews 
being ignorant and barbarous, God condescended to suit his 
revelation to their capacities. The Eev. Dr. Spencer says 
that " the Jews were, above all the inhabitants of the earth, 
of a morose, ill-natured, and infamously obstinate temper — 
they were a cruel and barbarous people ; superstitious and 
destitute of almost all literature. « .and therefore God in 
dealing with this illiterate and exceedingly superstitious 
people was obliged to make allowance for their infirmity, and 
draw them to himself by a sort of craft and not by reason. 
For no brute is more crossgrained, or requires greater cun- 
ning to manage than the superstitious brute, especially if he 
be ignorant."* According to some Biblical apologists we are 
therefore to expect in the Bible phrases suited to the capa- 
city of an ignorant man, and the errors of Genesis in stat- 
ing matters testable by science are intentional errors, because 
to the ignorant Jew the truth would have seemed falsehood, 
Kalisch admirably answers, <^ But let it not be said that 
the Bible intentionally described the actual objects in so 
simple and unscientific a manner, in order to adapt itself 
to the uncultivated understandings of the contemporaries. 
We shall not urge that the Bible repeatedly insists that it 
was not written for one age and one people, but for all 
times and all nations ; that it must, under that supposition, 
have assumed that in no future period any nation would 
advance to more profound researches and more refined cul- 
ture. But every one sees the very dangerous character of 
that principle, that the Scriptures are not hand fide truth. 



* Sp«ncer : de Legibus Hebreeorum, p. 62-^ 



158 



GENESIS : ITS AUTHORSHIP AND AUTHETICITT. 



but in many important points a convenient accommodation 
to prevailing absurdities and childish ignorance. When 
can we with confidence say they are in earnest, and that 
their doctrines claim the authority of absolute truth? 
This w^ould throw open the Bible to uncertainty and 
doubt in so unparalleled a degree, that it would practically 
cease to have any definite meaning."* 

The Book of Genesis takes a wide scope, whether written 
for ignorant men or for all men, it seeks to determine and 
conclude all questions on ontology, geology, astronomy, eth- 
nology, primitive history, and philosophy ; and in Europe 
for centuries Genesis has impeded inquiry, but the day for 
its domination is rapidly passing away. Inside the church 
and outside its pale heresy finds speech, stone strata are not 
as easily forged as musty parchments, the vast vault of 
heaven is more easily read by patient science than are the 
contradictory texts which fling a world inconceivably wan- 
dering in space until sun, moon, and stars are fixed around 
it. Our common humanity finds higher links of brotherhood 
than is given by asserting the same father, Adam, for all 
mankind. History, exhibiting on its pages memoirs of 
empires whose crumbling records antedate Eden's garden 
story, asks, how long shall a Genesis page hide pyramids 
and monuments from the inquiring gaze of the archaeologist? 
The philosopher pointing to the charred stake, memento of 
that infidelity which the flame alone refuted, asks, how 
long shall the advocates of one old book seek with it to 
outweight all newer and truer thinkings ^ 



♦ Genesis, p. 28. 



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ITS AUTHORSHIP AND AUTHENTICITY. 



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EXODUS: 



ITS lUTHEXTICITY AND CEEDIBILITT. 



Tee two words, ni^ii? nb^i TJALE SlieMUTli, com- 
mencing the text, form its title in the Hebrew MSS. Often 
the second word is used alone to denote this book. The 
English title. Exodus, is from the Greek, and refers to the 
alleged departure of the Jews from Egypt, of which this 
book contains the account. The words added to the title in 
the authorised version "Second Book of Moses" are, like 
those added to Genesis, without warranty either in the 
Hebrew, the Greek of the Septuagint, or the Latin Vulgate. 

According to orthodox commentators, Exodus gives a 
history extending over about 145 years from the death of 
Joseph. There is not only no proof that Moses ever wrote 
a single line of Exodus, but there is, in fact, considerable 
evidence to the conti^ary. The Mosaic authorship of the 
Pentateuch has already been referred to in comments on 
Genesis ;^ and it is, therefore, needless to repeat the objec- 
tions to it in this place. Dr. Irons, prebendary of St. 
Paul's, in a httle volume recently published, admits that 
most learned men are of opinion that the ordinary Hebrew 
character could not have been used by Moses, and that 
there is groimd for denying that the comipilation, we call 
the Old Testament, is, as a whole, of earlier date than the 
Babylonish Captivity, even if it reaches that epoch.f 
Exodus is, as will be seen by the attentive reader, an 
anonymous work, incomplete and incoherent in many parts, 



* Genesis, p. 56. 

t Dr. Irons' Bible and its Interpreters, pp, 21 to 40. 



160 



EXODtTS i 



mid probably based in part on pre-existing documents smea 
iost, and in part on oral traditions. It is encumbered with, 
repetitions, and, where capable of collation with other booliB 
of the BiblCj is often contradictory. 

There is but little, if any, attempt at corroboration of the 
narrative in Exodus by any profane winter much before the 
Christian era; any statement of earlier eA^idences depending 
almost entirely on the authority of Josephus, who wrote 
during the second half of the first century, so that the Book 
of Exodus must be tried on its own merits, there being no 
endorsement of contemporary authors to vouch its 
accuracy. The fruitful source of historical information, 
provided by the monuments of ancient Egypt, affords no 
result to the devout searcher for the Pharaoh who knew 
not Joseph, nor is there any hieroglyph recording the swal* 
lowing of Egypt's armies by the Vv^aters of the Eed Sea. 
Between Exodus and history a mde gap intervenes. The 
records of Grod's chosen race are sadly open to adverse 
criticism, and their very origin is subject of controversy. 
Even if the fragments quoted from Manetho, of whom 
Josephus says that " he trifles and tells arrant lies," 
Chaeremon, Lysimachus, Diodorus, and others, be taken as 
some sort of evidence, the believer gains but little help to 
his faith in learning that the Osarsiph priest of Osiris was 
the leader out from Egypt of a crowd of leprous slaves. 
These can hardly be Moses' and Grod's chosen ones. 
Tacitus, who wrote about the close of the first century, 
during the reign of Trajan, and after the publication of 
Josephus' s history, has the following curious statement * : — 

" The Jews, we are told, escaping from the island of 
Crete at the time when Saturn was driven from his throne 
by the violence of Jupiter, settled in the extreme parts of 
Libya. Their name is adduced as a proof. Ida, it is 
iilleged, is a well-known mountain in Crete ; the neigh- 
bouring Idaeans, by an addition to the name to adapt it to 
the language of barbarians, are ordinarily called Judseans. 
Some say that the population, overflowing throughout 
Dgypt in the reign of Isis, was relieved by emigi'ation into 



History, Book 5, | 2 and 3. 



ITS A1JTHE2TTICITY A^TD CEEDIEILTTT, 



161 



the neiglibourmg comitries, under tlie conduct of Hieroso- 
lynius and Juda. Many state that they are the progeny 
of the Ethiopians, who were impelled by fear and detesta- 
tion to change their abode in the reign of King Cepheus, 
There are those who report that they are a heterogeneous 
band from Assyria, a people who, being destitute of a 
country, made themselves masters of a portion of Egypt, 
and subsequently settled in cities of their own in the 
Hebrew territories, and the parts bordering on Syria, 
Others, ascribing to the Jews an illustrious origin, say that 
the Solymi,a nation celebrated in the poetry of Homer, called 
the city which they built Hierosolyma, from their own name. 

" Very many authors agree in recording that a pestilential 
disease, which disfigured the body in a loathsome manner, 
spreading over Egypt, Bocchoris, at that time king, 
repairing to the oracle of Jupiter Hammon in quest of a 
remedy, was directed to purify his kingdom and exterminate 
that race of men as being detested by the gods ; that a mass 
of people thus marched out and collected together were in 
a barren desert abandoned to their misery, when, all the 
rest being bathed in tears and torpid with despair, Moses, 
one of the exiles, admonished them not to look for any aid 
from gods or men, being deserted of both, but to trust 
themselves to him as a heaven-commissioned guide, by 
whose aid they had already warded off the miseries that 
beset them. They assented, and commenced a venturous 
journey, not knowing whither they went. But nothing 
distressed them so much as want of water ; and now they 
lay stretched through all the plains, ready to expire, when 
a herd of wild asses, returning from pasture, went up a rock 
shaded with a grove. Moses followed them, and forming 
his conjecture by the herbage that grew upon the ground, 
opened copious springs of water. This was a relief ; and 
pursuing their journey for six days without intermission, 
on the seventh, having expelled the natives, they took pos« 
session of a country, where they built their city and dedi- 
cated their temple." 

Failing to discover, then, external bases for hostile 
criticism or for corroboration, the examination of the te^S 
itself must determine how far it is trustworthy. 



162 



EXODUS : 



Chap. i. V. 5. — " And all the souls that came out of tha 
loins of Jacob were seventy souls : for Joseph was in Egypt- 
iilready.'* The Septuagint states the number as seventy- 
five. The words, " Joseph was in Egypt," are placed in the 
Septuagint at the beginning of the verse, and not at the^ 
end, as in our version. Kalisch observes that, to make up 
the seventy persons who came out of the loins of Jacob, 
Aben Ezra and others have included Jacob himself, only 
sixty-nine being enumerated if Jacob be omitted. 

Verses6and7. — " Joseph died and his brethren, andall that 
generation. And the children of Israel were fruitful, and 
increased abundantly, and multiplied, and waxed exceeding 
mighty; and the land was filled with them." If these words 
mean anything, they mean that in the duration of a little more 
than two or three generations at the uttermost, the children 
of one man multiplied so as to fill the whole of the land of 
Egypt, and to become exceedingly mighty. An unbelieving 
reader may find reason to regard the whole legend as 
■doubtful, but devout believers can only wonder that this 
numerous and exceedingly mighty people allowed the 
Egyptians so to maltreat and oppress them ; or that this 
fruitful and abundantly-increasing people, who filled all the 
land, and must have numbered at least 2,500,000 persons, 
had only two midwives to attend them. They may also 
wonder why Grod made houses for those midwives, when, if 
the Israelites were so exceedingly fruitful and numerous, 
the midwives could have but little time to live in their own 
houses, but must have been always staying in other per- 
sons' houses while employed in their professional avocations. 
Admirers of God's unchangeable perfection may likewise 
wonder why he rewarded the midwives for telling Pharaoh 
a lie, when by his power he might have saved his chosen 
people from destruction without any such departure from 
truthfulness. The foot-note to the Douay Bible says, 
" The midwives were rewarded, not for their He, which was 
a venial sin, but for their fear of Grod and their humanity ; 
but this reward was only temporal, in building them houses 
— ^that is, in establishing and enriching their families." 

Many endeavours have been made to account for the 
extraordinarily rapid increase in the number of the Israelites^ 



ITS ArTHEXTICITY AND CEEDIBILITT. 



163 



and one ortliodox bishop has suggested that the Hebrew 
women might, by extraordinary blessing of Grod," have 
brought forth " six children at a time."* 

Unless it be supposed that the Egyptians were a superior 
race, in point of intelligence, to the Jews, it is very difficult 
to understand why the latter, more mighty and more nume- 
Tous, should permit themselves to be oppressed by the 
former. The King of Egypt actually speaks of the Israelites 
as "more and mightier" than the Egyptians, and yet the 
fewer and weaker are represented as the taskmasters and 
oppressors. "Wiien it happens that the few oppress the 
many, it is usually because the few are intellectually 
superior, and that the many are either weak and incapable 
through their poverty and ignorance; or by internal dissen- 
sions are prevented from exercising such power as they 
really possess ; but a pious reader can hardly suppose Grod's 
specially-selected and protected race to have fallen inta 
either of these sad conditions. Josephus says that the 
oppression continued for 400 years,t and that the Egyptians 
grew delicate and lazy ; that one of their sacred scribes 
prophesied that an Israelitish child should be born who 
should overthrow the Egyptian dominion, and that it was 
under the advice of the iEgyptian prophet that the King 
ordered the t^'o midwives, who were Egyptians, to kill the 
Israelitish males. Josephus contradicts the Bible, for he 
says that the midwives, by reason of their relation to the 
King, would not transgress his commands. J Professor 
Whist on adds in a note, " Indeed, Josephus seems to have 
had much completer copies of the Pentateuch, or other 
authentic records now lost, about the birth and actions of 
Moses than either our Hebrew, Samaritan, or Greek Bibles 
afford us." If Professor Whiston's suggestions have any 
foundation, what becomes of the reliability of the Hebrew 
Eecords ? Doubtless, the idea that Josephus had fuller- 
narratives to quote from is true, for we camiot assume 

* See Coleoeo part i., 106 ; Cahen,Exocle 1 ; and Kaliscti, Exodus 4.. 
t This is clearly inaccurate, as the oppression would hardly com- 
mence till some time alter the death of Joseph. 
i Antiquities, Book ii., cap. 9, see. 2. 



164 



EXODUS : 



that tlie Jewish historian invented the additional events^ 
the more especially as in the books of the New Testament 
we have statements as to Moses not contained in the 
Pentateuch as we have it now. Ani in the later books of 
the Old Testament genealogical tables are provided with 
names not preserved in the commns of the Pentateuch, and 
which are either inventions or derived from records now lost. 

Yerse 11. — " And they built for Pharaoh treasure-cities, 
Pithom and Eaamses." In place of " treasure-cities," 
Cahen has, des villes de provision the Yvign^tey urbes 
tabernaculorum the Douay, " cities of tabernacles ;" 
Kalisch, " store-cities." The Septuagint makes the Jews 
build three cities instead of two, for it adds after Eaamses, 
" and On, which is Heliopolis." Samuel Sharpe says,'^ 
" Pithom was no doubt the same place as On, being pre- 
ceded by the Coptic article." [This is in direct opposition 
to the Septuagint, which Sharpe quotes as an authority, and 
which expressly names On as a third and distinct city.] 
" And if we had not the authority of the Septuagint for On 
being Heliopolis, I should conjecture that Baamses were 
Heliopolis, Ea being the Coptic, as Helios the Grreek, for 
the Sun, and that Pithom were Memphis, HM, or Horn, 
being the hieroglyphical name for Memphis in the Eosetta 
Stone." 

Verse 22. — " And Pharaoh charged all his people, saying, 
Every son that is born ye shall cast into the river, and every 
daughter ye shall save alive." Von Bohlen says, " The 
600,000 men contemporaries of Moses, and even his own 
brethren, are sufficient proof that this cruel order was 
never executed ; or if it was, we must suppose that it only 
remained in force for a very limited period, "f It is, 
however, hardly possible to believe in the countermand of 
the order, without some notice of such a countermand 
being given in Exodus, so that the difficulty is unex- 
plained. 

Chap, ii., V. 1. — The writer does not here name the father 
and mother of Moses. Colenso, in supporting the document 



Early Historv of Egypt, p. 13. 
t Genesis, vol. i., cap. 10, 



ITS AUTiiENTIClTT ASTf CREDIBILITY. 



165 



theory, suggests tliat the name of the mother was unknown 
to the author of this portion of the text. In chap, vi., v. 
20, they are named Amram and Jochebed. Jarhi makes 
the mother of Moses 130 years old at the time of his birth. 
— (this, our reader will see, is too moderate). She was at 
the same time his mother and his great aunt.* 

Terse 10. — *• And she called his name Moses ; and sho 
said, Because I drew him out of the water." Tlie Egyptian, 
or Hebrew origin of the name Moses, has been much dis- 
cussed. Some urge that Moses was the Egyptian name, 
and the Talmud gives no less than nine other names, 
given to him by the Jews. Others contending for Moses, 
as Hebrew give Osarsiph, Tisithen, or Hermes, as Egyptian 
appellations. 

Verses 11-15. — " And it came to pass in those days, when 
Moses was grown, that he went out imto his brethren, 
and looked on their bui'dens : and he spied an Egyptian 
smiting an Hebrew, one of his brethren. And he looked 
this way and that way, and when he saw that tJiere ivas no 
man, he slew the Egyptian, and hid him in the sand. And 
when he went out the second day, behold, two men of the 
Hebrews strove together : and he said to him that did the 
wrong, Wherefore smite st thou thy fellow ? And he said. 
Who made thee a prince and a judge over us ? intendest 
thou to kill me, as thou killedst the Egyptian ? And 
Moses feared, and said. Surely this thing is known. Now 
when Pharaoh heard this thing, he sought to slay Moses. 
But Moses Sed from the face of Pharaoh, and dwelt in the 
land of jMidian : and he sat down by a well." It is curious 
that no man being present the story should get to the ears 
of Pharaoh. Josephus not only does not give one word of 
this account, but narrates very differently the motives which 
induced Moses to fly from Egypt. He states that Moses 
was made general of the Egyptian armies, and gained for 
them considerable victories. That he captured the royal 
city of Ethiopia, and married Tharbis, the daughter of the 
king. That on his return the sacred scribes, envious of his 
power, prompted the king to kill him, and that therefore 



* Cahen, Exode, p. 5 ; and see Infra on cap, 6. 



166 



EXODUS : 



Moses, to avoid assassination, fled to Midian.* According 
to Abarbanel, or Abravanel, the Sepher Haishar make» 
Moses reign 40 years in Ethiopia before his flight to 
Midian.f Kalisch J says, " The Book of the Chronicles of 
Moses differs from the relation of Josephus in some 
particulars, the most remarkable of which is, that Moses 
was proclaimed king of the Ethiopians in his 30th year, 
which dignity he maintained during forty years ; and after 
this period he fled to Midian, where he Avas imprisoned seven 
years by Jethra, and then united in marriage with his 
daughter, Zipporah." 

Verses 16-18. — " Now the priest of Midian had seven 
daughters." The Septuagint here adds the words, " feeding 
the flocks of their father Jothor." These verses give the 
name of the father-in-law of Moses as Eeuel, but according 
to chap, iii., v 1, chap, iv., v. 18, chap, xviii., vv. 1, 2, 5, 6, 
and 12, his name w^as Jethro, while according to Numbers, 
chap. x.,v. 29, his name was neither Eeuel nor Jethro, but 
Hobab, son of Eaguel. In Judges, chap, iv., v. 11, Hobab 
is also called the iather-in-law of Moses. On reference to 
the Hebrew text, I find the same word is carelessly 

anglicised as Eeuel and Eaguel. Dr. Wall, who regards 
the Hebrew text as corrupted by the vocalizers, says, " The 
name of the father-in-law of Moses is exhibited, in both the 
Jewish and Samaritan copies of the Pentateuch l"^n*» 
IThEU, but its transcription in the Septuagint Jbj^^or proves 
that the oiiater lectionis, at present terminating the 
Hebrew group, is a spurious letter, and was not interpo- 
lated in the original text until after the first Greek version 
was written. Against the genuineness, indeed, of this 
letter the sacred text itself, even in its present state, can 
be made to bear evidence ; as the interpolators, in their 
hurry, overlooked this group in one passage, Exodus, chap, 
iv., V. 18, where they suffered it to remain in its original 
state, without any vowel letter subjoined. "§ 

Verse 21.— ' And Moses was content to dwell with the 

* Antiquities, Book ii., caps. 10 and 11. 

t Cahen, Exode, p. 8. 

i Exodus, p. 30. 

I Grounds for Eevision, p. 147. 



ITS AriHE^-TICITY AXD CEEDIEILITY. 



167 



man." The Douay following the Latin Vulgate says, ''And 
Moses swore that he would dwell with him." Kaliseli 
states, that accordincr to a rabbinical tradition. Moses 
promised with an oath that he would not leave Midian 
without the consent of Zethro. 

Terse 21. — n"^i:v Ts^^Ph^^EE. Zi]^])orah. Cahen. remarking 
that the name is Hebrew. siLrnifyinor Urd, inquires what 
languao-e was in use amone^t the Midianites. Kaliseh says 
the word is also Arabic, and that this was then spoken by 
the people of Midian. Kaliseh has. hoAvever, no evidence 
to support his view. 

Verse 22. — The A'ulo-ate adds the followinof words, not 
found either in the Hebrew, or autlmri-ed EiiLr-ish version, 
l3ut translated in the Douav : — JJteruni v^-ro j.^cj:>erit ciueni 
xoccrc'd JEliczcr. d teens : Deu.s eiUni jjatris r/iei adjuifjr meus, 
eripuit me de menu Fharaonis." " And slie bore another, 
whom he called Eliezer, sayino;. - for the Gijd of my father 
hath delivered me out of the hands of Pharaoh." " Several 
other versions support the additionof these Avords to tliis verse. 

Verses 23-25. — And it came to pass in process of time, 
that the king of E^rvpt died : and the children of Israel 
sighed by reason of the bondacre. and they cried, and their 
cry came up unto Grod by reason of the bondage. And 
God heard their groanino:,"* and God remembered his 
covenant Avith Abraham, with Isaac, and AAdth »Iacob. And 
God looked tipon the children of Israel, and God had 
respect nnto tliem." Instead of had respect imto them, 
the Douay reads. he knoAv them:" Cahen. " Dieu les 
reconnut the Vido^ate. eognovit eos ;" Kaliseh, " God 
regarded them." Cahen says. Look at the succession of 
ideas, the suiferings of the children of Israel on earth here 
beloAv made them cry otit. These cries mounting on high 
to God's dwelling, are heard by him. and the sensation 
recalls to his memory his ancient alliance, and in conse- 
quence he looks down upon the Hebrews, whom he then 
recognises."* The Bible, in fact, implies that God the 
- omniscient had forgotten his chosen-race, to Avliom he had 
bound him self by solemn promise, coA^enant.and oath,that his 
memory refreshed, he looks doAvn npon the Jews, who, 
lontil this, had been out of sii^ht and out of mind. 



Exode, p. 9. 



168 



EXODUS : 



Cliap. iii. Y. Mountain of God." Tlie Septuagint does 
not contain this phrase. 

Verse 2. — The Douay, following as usual the Latin of 
the Vulgate, says that " The Lord appealed," instead of 
the angel. As in the account of the Lord's appearance to 
Abraham (see commentary on G enesis, p. 100), the text is 
very confused — in v. 2, it is the angel ; in v. 4, it is the Lord. 
Aben Ezra taught that throughout it was the angel, and not 
the Lord.^ Parkhurst relying on the plural of Deuteronomy 
c. xxxiii., V. 16, says, " It is evident Jehovah appeared to? 
Moses in more persons than one."t Dr. McCaul, quoting 
verses 2 to 6, says, " To a plain reader, abiding by the 
common rules of grammar and the usages of all languages, 
it would appear that the angel of the Lord here calls him- 
self the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. Eabbi Bechai 
says, " The angel mentioned here is the angel, the redeemer, 
of w^hom it is written, ' I am the G od of Bethel.' " Eabbi 
Moses Ben Kachman supports this view. Dr. McCaul 
therefore affirms that the angel of the Lord is, in truth, 
Jehovah, the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. J Parkhurst 
says, " We often read of the angel (sometimes angels) of 
Jehovah, or of the aleim ; that is, his agent, personator, 
means of visibility or action ; what was employed by God 
to render himself visible and approachable by flesh and 
blood. This angel w^as evidently a human form surrounded 
by light or glory with, or in which Jehovah was present.'* 
The portraying the infinite and omnipotent Deity as 
appearing in a flame of fire in the midst of a thorn bush, 
hardly induces a reverential feeling in the mind ; that the 
bush should burn with fire and yet not be consumed, seems 
a pyrotechnic juggle, unworthy serious purpose ; and when 
we find as a grand climax to all this that Moses is desired 
to remove his shoes as a mark of reverence to the blazing 
Deity, the whole story lapses into the category of " a 
thousand and one Arabian Nights' tales," for although it 
is undoubtedly true that the bare feet of the oriental 

* Caben Exode, p. 10. See also Genesis, chap.2:sii,j vv. II andl4j 
t Judges, chap, vi., vv. 11 and 14. 
and Hebrew Lexicon, p. 495. 

{ Kimchi on Zechariali, p. 26, 



ITS AUTHEIS-TICITY AXD . CREDIBILITY. 



169 



TP'orsliippers mark their reverence for the sacred ground on 
wliich tliey ti^ead, it is clearly absurd to suppose iniinity 
more present in one spot than in any other, and there- 
fore any one spot more holy than any other to the 
infinite. 

Verse 6. — In G-enesis, chap, xxxii., v. 28, and chapxxxv., 
Y. 10, Grod said of Jacob, " Thy name shall not be any 
* more called Jacob, Israel is thy name," [See my commen- 

tary on G-enesis, p. 126.] Tet we find he calls himself 
" the Grod of Jacob," and uses the name " Jacob " several 
times in the book of Exodus. 

Yerse 8. — After " the Perizzites," the Septuagint adds, 
"the Grergashites," omit-ted here (see G-enesis, p. 95). 
The wording, " I am come dovvTi to deliver them," shows that 
to the writer of Exodus the idea of Deity was that of a God^ 
residing in some heaven above, who, when his active 
interference in mundane afi'airs became necessary, and when 
" the cry " " came unto " him, descended to this globe to 
personally redress the wrongs done to his chosen peoples ; 
wrongs which he, God, had been unaware of until the 
cry of sufi'ering, uttered by the Israehtes, had reached 
him in his heavenly dwelling. 

Verse 10. — " Come now, therefore, and I will send thes 
unto Pharaoh, that thou mayest bring forth my people, the 
children of Israel, out of Egypt." It has been asked why 
did God, if he meant to really benefit the Je^vish people, 
take them out of Egypt at all, when he might, by his 
omnipotence, have rendered their continuance in Egypt 
happy by inducing the Egyptians to cease their persecu- 
tion. Erom the fertile plains of Egypt, and from its flesh- 
pots, which the Jews deeply regretted, he led them into the 
burning sands of the desert, or else into contact with hostile 
tribes, who contested each stage of their journey towards 
the land of promise, which, when reached, was far inferior 
to the fruitful valley of the Nile. 

Verse 14. — " I am that I am." Douay, " I am who am." 
n^n^ y^i^ n^rr^ AEIE ASheE AEIE. Cahen says, " These 
three words signify, grammatically, " I shall be that I shall 
be," or " I am that I am" — ^for rr^n^ AEIE, indicates as 
well the present as the future. The passage is difficult, but 



170 



SXODtTS: 



there are abundant explanations. Onbelos does not translate 

it, and we have imitated him as to the word AEIE, which 
is only found used in this place, and is, perhaps, one of the 
names of Grod. Such is the opinion of the Sepher Hamivhar 
and of Vater. They say that AEIE is the name of the 
Eternal, applied by himself to himself. The Seventy 
iranslate, " Me I am he who is Mendelssohn, " I am the 
being who exists eternally the Vulgate, " Sum qui swny 
^There are many other explanations more or less abstract.* 
(See G-enesis, p. 114.) 

Verse 15. — Grodwyn says that the Jews, in order to 
defend their abstinence from the use of the word lEUE, 
corrupted the phrase " This is my name for ever." Instead 
of Dbu^b LOULeM " for ever," reading xh))^ LOLeM " ta 
l)e concealed." 

Verse 17. — " And the Perizzites ;" after these, and before 
the Hivites, the Septuagint, as in verse 8, inserts, " the 
Girgashites." 

Verse 22. — " But every woman shall borrow of her neigh- 
bour, and of her that sojourneth in her house, jewels of 
silver, and jewels of gold, and raiment : and ye shaU put 
them upon your sons, and upon your daughters ; and ye 
shall spoil the Egyptians." This mode of" borrowing" seems 
"very much like stealing, and the translators of the Breeches 
3ible, in a note, say that this example is not to be followed 
generally. Aben Ezra, speaking for the Jews, says, " Some 
inveigh against us, and say our ancestors were thieves, but 
these do not see that it was commanded them by G-od, and 
we have, therefore, no right to inquire into the reason.jr 
Xessing retorts, "If we consider the action in itself, we 
cannot but admit that the whole is falsehood, deception, 
and theft. But how, if hereunto simply the words are 
added, * the Lord hath said or commanded,' will thereby 
base deceit and nefarious fraud assume the character of 
sacred revelation ? "Will thereby the most impious wicked- 
ness be converted into a pious action ? Thus it would be 
•easy to stamp falsehood as inspiration, and rancour as 



^ Exode, p. 12 
t Ralisch, £xodU8. 



ITS AUTHEKTICITr AKB CREDrBILITT. 



171 



virtue and piety ; thus we lose every test of laudable and 
criminal deeds ; thus religion and piety differ from the most 
glaring \illainy, but by a few empty words ^ God bath 
«aid."' Cahen and Kalisch urge tbat " borrow" should be 
translated " ask," or " demand." Cahen says,* " Those are 
wrong who attack the Israelites on this account. They 
should think that these slaves, endeavouring to break their 
chains, would hardly scruple to deceive their old ojopressors, 
that such an action may be excused, and is even in accord- 
ance with what we know of the manners of ancient Asiatic 
nations. To judge impartially the morality of a nation, it 
is necessary to know its particular notions of justice and 
injustice, and not to judge antiquity by our present views." 
But Cahen may fairly be answered, that the immorality is 

: alleged to be directed by Grod, whose particular notions of 
justice ought not to be susceptible to modification by any- 
such influences as those here alluded to. 

Bishop Colenso takes an objection of an entirely different 
character. He says,t " We are told that ' every woman was 
to borrow of her neighbour, and of her that sojourned in 
her house, jewels of silver, and jewels of gold, and raiment' 
(Exodus, ii. 22). Erom this iib would seem to follow that 
the Hebrews were regarded as living in the midst of the 
Egyptians, mixed qjd freely with them in their dwellings. 
And this appears to be confirmed by the statement (Exodus, 
xii. 35 and 36) that, when suddenly summoned to depart, 

" they hastened, at a moment's notice, to ' borrow' in all 
directions from the Egyptians, and collected such a vast 
amount of treasure, in a very short space of time, that they 

^spoiled the Egyptians.' And, indeed, it would seem only 
natural that those among the Egyptians who did not 
sympathise with the mad folly of their king, and had all 
along a friendly feeling, and by this time also a deep 
respect, for Israel, should have taken refuge in the Hebrew 
dwellings, and sought immunity in this way from the 
plagues which ravaged the land. 

And so writes Hengstenberg, p. 409 : — * The Israelites 



* Fxode, p. 13. 
t Part I., p. 56. 



172 



EXOBUS : 



dwelt in liouses, and intermixed with Egyptians, so that the 
destroying angel would pass by one door and stop at another. 
They Hved with the Egyptians, with whom, in part, they 
stood on most friendly terms, in cities. According to 
Exodus iii., 20 and 22, it was not unfrequently the case, 
that Egyptian lodgers dwelt with an Israeiitish householder, 
and those persons of good property, so that they could 
give from abimdance, gold and silver ornaments and 
clothes.' 

" But the supposition of their borrowing in this way, 
even if they lived in such a city, involves prodigious diffi- 
culties. Por the city, in that case, could have been no 
other than Eaameses itself, from which they started (Exodus 
xii., 37) a ' treasure-city,' which they had built for Pharaoh 
(Exodus i., 11) — doubtless, therefore, a well-built city, noc 
a mere collection of mud-hovels. And so the story, in 
Exodus ii., 5, of the daughter of Pharaoh going down to 
bathe in the Nile, in the immediate proximity of the place 
where Moses was born, implies that his parents, at all - 
events, lived not far from the royal residence. But, if the 
Israelites lived in such a city together with the Egyptians, 
it must have been even larger than London, and the diffi- 
culty of communication would have been thereby greatly 
increased. Eor we cannot suppose that the humble 
dwellings of these despised slaves were in closest contiguity 
with the mansions of their masters. And, in fact, several 
of the miracles, especially that of the * thick darkness,' 
imply that the abodes of the Hebrews were wholly apart from 
those of the Egyptians, however difficult it may be to con- 
ceive how, under such circumstances, each woman could 
have borrowed from her that ' sojourned in her house.' 
Thus we should have now to imagine the time that would 
be required for the poorer half of London going hurriedly 
to borrow from the richer half, in addition to their other 
anxieties in starting upon such a sudden and momentous 
expedition." 

Chap, iv., V. 1. — Moses was, like Abraham, a thorough 
imbeliever, despite the praise given to him in the New 
Testament for his faith ; for, notwithstanding that, in chap, 
iii., V. 18, Grod personally assures Moses that the Israelites 



ITS ArXlJEKTICITY AiO) CEEDIBILITT. 



173 



shall hearken unto him, yet the Jewish leader now expresses* 
his strong opinion to the contrary. He evidently did not 
regard God's decree as sufficient to determine the actions 
or opinions of the Israelites.^ 

Verses Sand 9. — "And it shall come to pass, if they \\dll not 
believe thee, neither hearken to the voice of the first sign, 
that they will believe the voice of the latter sign. And it 
shall come to pass, if they will not believe also these two 
signs, neither hearken unto thy voice, that thou shall take 
of the water of the river, and pour it upon the dry land : 
and the water which thou takest out of the river shaR 
become blood upon the dry land'' The doubt as to which 
of several means should prove efficacious is not in character 
with the attribute of omnipotent omniscience. " Grod,'* 
says Spinoza, "is here revealed as indifferent to, and ignorant 
of the future actions of mankind." Two miracles are pro- 
vided to be worked, so that if one fails, the second may 
succeed. God says if the people will not believe the first 
sign, they will believe the second, and yet he provides a 
third, in case both first and second are disbelieved. Aben 
Ezra, astonished by the language used here, and in other 
parts of the Bible, justified it on the theory that God in 
revelation had expressed himself incorrectly, in order to 
suit the inferior capacities of his chosen people. Kalisch, 
who alleges that God knew whether the Jews would 
believe or not, makes a very weak endeavour to explain the 
language of the text. "While these wonders might have 
induced the Israehtes to consider Moses a very extra- 
ordinary man, it is difficult to conceive how they could 
influence the belief of the Israelites as to the existence of 
God. Miracles may evidence a power out of the range of 
the beholder's experience, but can hardly demonstrate a 
theological proposition. 

Verse 10. — " And Moses said unto the Lord, ' O, my 
Lord, I am not eloquent, neither heretofore, nor since thou 
hast spoken unto thy servant : but I am slow of speech, and 
of a slow tongue.' " The Midrash, and " The Chronicles of 
Moses " relate a story of a miraculous deliverance of Moses 



* See Spinoza, Tractatus Theo-Pol,, cap. ii. 



174 



EXODUS : 



from immment danger of death in his infancy, when he had, 
by chance, in his childish play, grasped at the croAvn on. 
Pharaoh's head, so that it fell down and broke into frag- 
ments. The king, considering this circumstance a fatal 
omen, ordered the boy to be instantly killed, when, on the 
advice of Jethro, in order to prove that the child was still 
without discernment, two basins, one filled with gold, the 
•^other with burning coals, were placed before Mos«^s, who, by 
the invisible interference of an angel, did not choose the 
dazzling gold, for which he had already stretched out his 
hand, but a burning coal, with which he touched his lips ; 
and thus he became " slow of speech, and of a slow tongue," 
and especially unable to pronounce the labials. " And 
because this defect of Moses," says Xachmanides, "was the 
consequence of a miracle, Grod did not wish to remove it."* 
This story is of course fabulous, but believers in the talking 
serpent, the talking ass, and other Bible wonders, can 
hardly make objection to an account because it is fable. 

Verse 13. — " And he said, ' 0, my Lord, send, I pray 
thee, by the hand of him tvJiom thou wilt send.' " The 
Septuagint version makes Moses say, " I beseech the Lord 
appoint another whom thou wilt send." 

Verse 14. — " And the anger of the Lord was kindled 
against Moses, and he said, * Is not Aaron the Levite thy 
brother ? I know that he can speak well. And also, behold, 
he Cometh forth to meet thee: and when he seeth thee, he will 
be glad in his heart.' " The anger of the Lord kindled, and 
why ? Because Moses had told him that he was not a 
good speaker, and that he (Moses) therefore desired the 
Lord to choose somebody else to represent his wishes to 
Pharaoh and the Jews. But why should the Lord be 
angry ? He must have himself well-knowTi Moses's dis- 
ability and have foreordained that Moses should be reluctant 
to go. The name of Aaron is here introduced suddenly. 
There is no previous account of his birth, or of any difficulty 
in saving him from the Egyptian tyranny. There were yet 
no Levites, so that the title, " Aaron the Levite," is antici- 
patory. " Aaron thy brother, of the house of Levi," can 



* Kalisch, Exodus, chap. 71. 



ITS AUTHENTICITY AKD CEEDIBILITT. 



175"' 



iardlyli B intended,for if Aaron had been the brother of Moses, 
no identificatory explanation would have been necessary. 

Verse 16.— " Thou shalt be to him instead of God." The 
Bouay, following the Septuagint, has, " But thou shalt be to 
him in those things that pertain to God.'* 

Verse 18. — " The Septuagint adds to this verse the words, . 

After many days the King of Egypt died." 

Verse 20. — His sons." Our version has, as yet, only 
related the birth of one — Gershom ; and in v. 25 you find 
*^ her son," as if only one. 

Verse 21. — "What are the miracles which are previously 
mentioned but so many incidents in a solemn farce, if God 
had already determined that Pharaoh should pay no atten- 
tion to them ? The rod turned into a serpent, the serpent 
returning to its condition of a rod, the leprous hand, and 
the water changed to blood, not being intended by 
God to move Pharaoh, of what use are they ? It can 
hardly be argued that they are like stage scenery, and 
used to heighten the effect of the grand finale. In the 
third chapter, God tells Moses to use subterfuge to 
Pharaoh, by pretending that the Jewish nation only 
wanted to go three days' journey to sacrifice in the wilder- 
ness, and at the same time God says, that he is " sure the 
Eang of Egypt will not let you go." If God is the ruler 
and ordainer of all things, he must have ruled and ordained 
that his chosen people should be iU-treated by Pharaoh, 
whom God must have created for that very purpose. Can 
anything be more inconsistent with the character of a just 
and merciful Deity ? Cahen says, it is not easy to recon- 
cile the involuntary hardening of Pharaoh's heart with the 
doctrine of a free will. 

Verse 24.—" And it came to pass by the way in the inn, 
that the Lord met him, and sought to kill him." What 
does this mean ? If the Lord sought to kill Moses, what 
hindered him from carrying out his desire ? It is strange 
that he sJiould seek to kill the very man whom he had 
selected to lead his chosen people out of Egypt. Where 
was the Inn, or caravanserai^ situate, in which the All- 
Powerful sought to kill his newly appointed prophet ? The 
foot note to the Douay says it was an angel who mei^ 



176 



EXODUS : 



and sought to kill Moses. Onkelos says the same 
thing. The circumcision of the son of Moses seems con- 
nected with the story, but not very clearly. The abrupt 
transition from the message to Pharaoh, in v. 23, to the 
seeking to kill Moses, shows that sometliing has been lost 
from the original text. The vv. 22-27, read as they stand, 
are absurd. In our version we are told that after the Lord 
let Moses go, Zipporah said, " A bloody husband thou art, 
because of the circumcision." In the Douay we find that 
Zipporah used these words — before the Lord let Moses go. 

Verses 25 and 26. — The Septuagint has, este to aima tes 
peritomes ton paidiou mou, " the blood of the circumcision 
of my son has ceased." 

Verses 28-30. — Aaron, who wrought the signs, and spoke 
the words to the people, did so apparently without any 
direct communication from G-od, as to either the signs or 
oral declarations. He must have been more credulous or 
much more daring than Moses, for he seems to have readily 
undertaken, upon the mere representation of his brother, 
that which his brother had hesitated to do, although 
personally commanded by Grod. 

Chap. V. — ^It is noteworthy that Moses not only adopts 
the ruse and pretence that he only desired a temporary 
leave of absence in order that the Jews might sacrifice, but 
lie also speaks as though G-od would punish his people if 
such sacrifices were not off'ered. 

Chap, v., w. 2 and 3. — " And Pharaoh said, * Who is the 
Lord, that I should obey his voice to let Israel go ? I know 
not the Lord, neither will I let Israel go.' And they said, 
* The G-od of the Hebrews hath met with us : let us go, we 
pray thee, three days' journey into the desert, and sacrifice 
unto the Lord our G-od, lest he fall upon us with pestilence, 
or with the sword." Moses and Aaron, when replying to 
Pharaoh, have evidently no idea of lEUE as an infinite and 
only God. They answer, " The God of the Hebrews met 
us." lEXJE is to Moses a god of the Hebrews, just as 
Osiris is a god of the Egyptians. 

Verses 22 and 23. — "And Moses returned unto the 
Lord, and said, * Lord, wherefore hast thou so evil entreated 
this people ? Why is it that thou hast sent me ? Eor since 



1TB AUTHENTICITY AKD CEEDIBILITr. 



177 



I came to Pharaoh to speak in thy name, he hath done 
evil to this people ; neither hast thou delivered thy people 
at all.' " The faith of Moses in the divine wisdom and power 
was not yet very great, notwithstanding his special inter- 
course with Grod, nor does his reverence for the omnipotent 
manifest itself in his language. 

Chap, vi., V. 3. — "And I appeared unto Abraham, unto 
Isaac, and unto Jacob, by the name of God Almighty ; but 
by my name JEHOVAH was I not known to them."* In 
the commentary on Grenesis, attention has already been 
drawn to the contradiction involved in this verse. Colenso, 
who notices the subject in his earlier parts, examines the 
matter very elaborately in his last volume. Following 
the majority of Grerman critics in separating the Pentateuch 
into various Elohistic and Jehovistic documents belonging 
to different ages, he declares that,t " It is plain that the 
Elohist has intentionally abstained from using the name 
* Jehovah,' till he had given the account of its revelation to 
Moses, in Exodus, chap, vi., w. 2-7. He meant, therefore, 
to imply that it was literally not known till the time of 
Moses; and the words in Exodus vi., v. 3, 'I appeared 
unto Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, by El Shaddai ; but (by) 
my name Jehovah was I not known to them,' were really 
intended by him to be understood in this sense, which is their 
most obvious and natural meaning. 

" The Elohist, then, meant to teach his people that the 
name ' Jehovah ' tvas not the name which their great fore- 
fathers used for the Deity. It was comparatively a modern 
name, at the most only three or four centuries old, and 
was first revealed to living man at the time of the Exodus. 

" On the other hand, we find the Jehovist habitually 
using the name ' Jehovah ' from the first, putting it into 
the mouth of Eve (chap, iv., v. 1), and saying that from 
the time of Seth men ' began to call upon the name of 
Jehovah.' And, in short, he represents the name as 
thoroughly well-known, not only to the Patriarchs, and their 
wives and families, but to the Philistines (chap, xxvi., 
vv. 28, 29), and AramcEans (chap. xxiv. 31, 50, 51) generally. 

* See pages 112 to 115. 

t Part 5, p. 269. See also part 2, p. 357. 



178 



EXODUS : 



Tliis contradiction shows us at once that the Jehovist di4: 
not believe implicitly in the Elohistic account of the origin 
of the name,, and for some reason thought it best to carry 
back that origin to the most distant ages of mankind. And 
from this fact alone, independently of all other considera- 
tions, we may infer at once that the account in Exodus^ . 
chap, vi., V. 2 and v. 7, is not to be taken as historically 
true; " 

Cahen says, " Le Tetragramme est souvent annonce dam 
la vie des jpatriarclies. II est meme dit expressement que ce 
mm apris cours dii temps de SetJi (Genesis, chap, iv., v. 26) ; 
ce qui est difficile a concilier avec ce qui est dit ici. " The 
four-lettered name is frequently mentioned in the lives of 
the Patriarchs. It is even expressly stated that the use of 
the name commenced in the time of Seth, which is difficult 
to reconcile with that which is here stated." 

Nicolas, in a chapter on Jehovism, examines at con- 
siderable length the arguments of Vatke, Hengstenberg,. 
Tholuck, Bohlen, and Knobel, as to the use, origin, and 
meaning of the words Jehovah and Elohim. Nicolas regards 
the word J ehovah as expressing the eternal, and the word 
Elohim, as expressing the all-powerful ; remarking that the 
latter word is also applied to kings, princes, and judges, and 
the former only to Deity. Nicolas regards the Hebrew 
theology, expressed in connection with the name Jehovah, 
as purely monotheistic ; but Von Bohlen takes precisely 
the opposite view. He says, "The Pentateuch can no 
better conceal, than the books which immediately succeed 
it, that Jehovah was at first merely the national Deity of 
the Israelites. Cain is afraid to dwell in a land where 

Jehovah is not the Deity " goes down " with his people 
into Egypt, and appears there to his chosen servants. He 
is constantly spoken of as " the Grod of Abraham, Isaac, 
and Jacob," or " the God of the Hebrews they are for- 
bidden to have any gods beside him, and Jehovah is repre- 
sented as holding such other Grods to be similar to himself, 
although he eventually subdues them, and (as every nation 
believes of its tutelar deity) he is more powerful than theyo 



* Genese, chap. xiv. ; Exode, chap, vi., 3. 



ITS AUTHENTICITY AND CREDIBILITY. 



179 



Such it is evident cannot be termed a pure " monotheism."* 

Colenso argues for the Phoenician origin of the four- 
lettered name which he identifies with iaQ, " a mysterious 
name, employed chiefly at the great feast of the Harvest," and 
used to designate the sun. 

In an abridged translation from Moses, the Bishop gives 
the following extracts : — " (I.)t lAO is the sun — God at 
the different times of the year, with the predomuiant idea 
•of Adonis as the harvest-Deity. In general, however, 
he represents a complexity of nature-deities, whose powers 
he comprehends in the meaning of his name, which is one 
full of mystery, and, according to Sanchoniathon, was 
taught in the priestly mysteries by the very oldest 
Phoenician hierophants. 

" (II.) — As Adonis-Elyon,he is the primary being, together 
with the female goddess of nature, out of whom was bom 
Uranos-Ge, as husband and wife, who parted afterwards 
from one another into * heaven,' and ' earth.' 

" (III.) — His name also was introduced, together with 
Dionysia, among the Greeks under various forms. 

" (IV.) — In the Chaldee Religion, lAO was a designa- 
tion of the spiritual principle of Light and Life, and seems 
to denote sometimes the highest Light-principle (Bel- 
Saturn), sometimes its efflux and image (Bel-Mithra). AE 
these different ideas, however, are gathered up in his mys- 
terious name lAO, which denotes him as the Principle 
of Life." 

" The Chaldaeans call the Deity lAO, which means in 
the tongue of the Phoenicians ' Intelligent Light and He 
is often also called ' Sabaoth,' as being over the seven 
(poles) heavens — that is, the Creator. JjjAus, de Mens, iv., 
88, p. 74. 

" With this may be compared another passage of Lydus, 
de Mens, iv., 38, p. 74, of SabaotJi, the Creator ; for thus 
among the PhcBnicians is the creative numher named. 

" The first of these passages is found also in Cedrenus,i., p. 
296,in a difterent connection, and with the name corrupted : 

" For (r)du} read 'laa>) lAO among the Chaldceans is 

Yon Bohlen, Genesis, chap, siii, 
t Part v., pp. 312 and 316. 



180 



EXODUS : 



interpreted to mean, in the tongue of the Fhceniciam, " IntellU 
gent ZAght^'* and Sahhath also (to mean) " over the SeveT^ 
Heavens''— that is, the Creator-Deity . 

" Thus, then, we obtain the following new ideas about 
lAO :— 

" (I.) — He was throned above the " Seven Heavens" of 
the Chaldaeans ; 

" (II.) — Hewasa Light-Being, and, in fact, the holy Light- 
Principle, "Intelligent Light," out of which, according to 
Chaldeeism, all spiritual beings emanated ; 

" (III.) — He was regarded as Creator." 

It is not unworthy of notice that the remarks of Colenso, 
and the authors from whom he quotes, are, to a considerable 
extent, corroborative of the views put forward by the Eev. 
Eobert Taylor (following Dupuis and Drummond) in his 
Diegesis* and Devil's Pulpit, as to the Tsabaistic origin of 
our Hebrew mythology. 

It is much to be regretted that the great learning and 
keen wit of B-obert Taylor are sometimes rendered less 
effective for modern readers by the special mode of utter- 
ance adopted. He had to fight with rough adversaries, and 
he was drawn to fight with coarse weapons. The views he 
advocates on the Christian astro-mythology have received 
support from some most erudite investigators of Bible 
myths. That the sun, under various personified phases, 
has supplied the world with gods from the most ancient to 
the more modern, not excluding Jesus Christ, it would be 
idle to deny, after the researches of Dupuis, Drummond, 
and Higgins, or even after perusing such a work as 
Keightley's Mythology. The Bishop of Natal, by his 
quotations from Jablonsky and Movers, places before the 
multitude a ray of light on Christian history, from the use 
of which they may guess why the day fixed for the birth 
of Jesus corresponds with the New Tear's birth, and why 
/S'w^iday is our Lord's day. It will be, however, new to 
many, the suggestion that to Jesus himself has been applied 
the mystic name, lAO, and that this has been applied to 
him avowedly as the mystic emblematical sun. , 



* Diegesis, cbap. xxiL 



ITS AUTHENTICITY ANB CBEDIBILITY, 181 



Kalisch^, who, in his commentary on Exodus, seems much 
more orthodox than in his later volume on Grenesis, warmly 
combat? the notion of any Phoenician, Egyptian, Chinese, 
or other than Hebrew origin for the word. The " I am all 
that has been, that is, and that will be," of the Temple of 
I sis, is not admitted by Kalisch as having the antiquity 
claim.ed for it.f Speaking of the sacredness of the name, 
Jehovah, he ol- serves that, according to the Talmud, 
Even he who thinks the name of God in its true letters^ 
forgets his future life." The Egyptians had also a Grod 
whose name was too sacred for utterance. Nicolas, 
while admitting that there are weighty arguments in favour 
of the hypothesis of the Phoenician origin of the word, 
denies that those arguments are convincing. 

Yerse 9. — " And Moses spake so unto the children of 
Israel ; but they barkened not unto Moses for anguish of 
spirit, and for cruel bondage," although, according to chap* 
iv. V. 31, they had previously believed. 

Verse 10. — Kalisch says, " It cannot be denied that the^ 
following part of this chapter, and the beginning of the 
follomng, to verse 7, is so obscure in its internal connection 
and structure, that the often-repeated assertion that we 
have here incoherent fragments unskilfully inserted in the 
context, appears at the first glance not without foundation. 
i?or neither contain — verses 11 to 13, or verse 26 to chap. vii. 
V. 7 — any new information, nor does the genealogy, verses 14* 
to 25, seem in its proper place here." 

Verse 15. — The family of Ohad is not mentioned in 
Numbers, chap. xxvi. v. 12. J emuel is there called Nemuel ;J 
Zohar is there called Zerah ; and so in Eirst Chronicles, 
chap. iv. V. 24, where also Jachin is called Jarib. 

Verse 17. — Libni is, in Eirst Chronicles, chap, xxiii. v. 7, 
called Laadan. If the writer of Chronicles only had our 
Pentateuch to refer to, from whence did he get the names 
of the children of Libni and Shimei ? The writer of the 
names of this family in Chronicles makes a most extraordi- 
nary jumble of confusion and contradiction. 

* Exodus, chap, lii 

t See also on this, i^icolas, p. 154. 

I See Commentary on Genesis, p. 136e 



-^182 



EXODUS : 



Verse 18. — No sons of Hebron are given in this chapter ; 

but in First Chronicles, chap, xxiii. v. 19, and in chap, 
xxiv. V. 23, four are named. 

Verse 21. — Of the sons of Izhar, three are here named, 
Korah, Nepheg, and Zichri ; but in First Chronicles, chap, 
xxiii. V. 18, only one is named, Shelomith, or, according to 
xjhap. xxiv. V. 22, Shelomoth. 

Verse 22. — The sons of Uzziel are here given as three, 
Mishael, Eezaphan, and Zithri ; but in First Chronicles, 
<chap. xxiii. v. 20, two are only named as " Micah the first^ 
ixni Jesiah the second." 

Verse 20. — " And Amram took him Jochebed, his father's 
sister, to wife.'* The Septuagint makes Jochebed " daughter 
of Amram's father's brother.*' Cahen suggests that this is 
so put because the marriage was within the prohibited 
degrees. The Septuagint also adds after Moses the words, 
" and Miriam, their sister." The name Jochebed being a 
compound, including the name J ah as prefix, religious critics 
are embarrassed by this, for, if the name Jah was not 
known prior to Exodus, chap. vi. v. 3, how could the 
ancestors of Moses use it?* Dr. John Pye Smith says 
that it appears to him impossible that the father of Moses 
should marry the daughter of Levi. Colenso says, " It is 
stated in the above passage that Amram took him, 
Jochebed, his father's sister, Kohath's sister, and, therefore, 
Levi's daughter, to wife ; and so, also, we read in Numbers, 
chap. xxvi. v. 59, " And the name of Amram's wife was 
Jochebed, the daughter of Levi, whom her mother bare ta 
Levi in Egypt ; and she bare unto Amram Aaron and Moses, 
and Miriam, their sister." Now Levi was one year older, 
than Judah, and was, therefore, forty-three years of ag^ 
when he went down with Jacob into Egypt ; and we are^ 
told, in Exodus, chap. vi. v. 16, that Levi w^as 137 years old 
when he died ; Levi must have, therefore, lived, according 
to this story, 94 years in Egypt. Making the extreme sup- 
position of his begetting Jochebed in the last year of his 
life, she may have been an infant 94 years after the migra- 
tion of Jacob and his sons into Egypt. Hence it follows 



* See Colenso, part 5, p. 273. 



ITS ArTHEXTICITT A>'D CTvEDIBILITY. 



183 



that if the sojourn in Egypt was 430 years, Moses, who 
was 80 years old at the time of the Exodus, must have been 
born 350 years after the migration into Egypt, when his 
mother must have been, at the very least, 256 years old."* 
And the years of the life of Amram were an hundred and 
thirty and seven years." The Septuagint says, " One 
hundred and thirty- two." 

Verses 26 and 27 could scarcely have been written by 
Moses, but rather appear to have been written, long after 
his age, by some one w^ho wished to identify the Aaron and 
Moses of the genealogy with the Aaron and Moses to whom 
the Lord spoke, and who repeats, in oriental style, the words 
of identification. Cahen says, verse 26 gives the names, 
Aaron and Moses, in order of birth, and verse 27 reversed 
in order of dignity. Yater says, " Thus an author writes 
of men who lived long before him." 

Chap. vii. v. 1. — What is meant by the words "I have 
made thee a Grod to Pharaoh ?" In what sense could Moses 
be considered as Pharaoh's Grod? He was not worshipped 
by Pharaoh, nor did he rule Pharaoh. According to chap, 
iv. V. 16, Moses was to be instead of a God to Aaron. The 
Lord's reply is in answer to Moses's excuse that he is un- 
circumcised. Erom this it would appear that Egyptians 
had some repugnance to uncircumcised persons ; yet, Moses, 
if born a Jew, ought to have been circumcised long before 
being put away in the ark — that is, if the Jews practised 
the rite, and if Moses, under care of Pharaoh's daughter, 
had been educated an Egyptian from his boyhood, he might 
fairly be supposed to have also conformed to all Egyptian 
customs. 

Verse 7. — " And Moses was fourscore years old, and 
Aaron fourscore and three years old, when they spake unto 
Pharaoh." So that, though Aaron was the elder born, he 
seems to have escaped the river to which all the male infants 
were to have been consigned, according to Pharaoh's order. 
His birth is passed over -wdthout notice in the text, so much 
so that, according to chap, ii., verses 1 and 2, Moses would 
appear to be the first son born after the marriage of his 
parents. 



* Part 1, p, 93. 



184 



EXODUS : 



Verses 10, 11, and 12. — " And Moses and Aaron 
went in unto Pharaoh, and they did so as the Lord had 
commanded ; and Aaron cast down his rod before Pharaoh, 
and before his servants, and it became a serpent. Then 
Pharaoh also called the wise men and the sorcerers; 
now the magicians of Egypt, they also did in like 
manner with their enchantments. Por they cast down 
every man his rod, and they became serpents ; but Aaron's 
rod swallowed up their rods." The only possible conclusion 
from these verses is that sorcery, magic, and enchantment 
are actually practicable. Many clever tricks are practised 
in the East by serpent charmers, but the text does not 
regard these as tricks. It relates that the " magicians did 
so with their enchantments." 

Kalisch, notwithstanding his orthodox efforts to clear 
away all the difficulties of Exodus, says, "It cannot be 
denied that the Pentateuch considers miracles performed, 
apparently not under the name of the Grod of Israel, but 
under the fancied influence of other deities, as not im- 
possible ; and that it admits even predictions which might 
be realised, and which are called ' false signs' only because 
they are given in a bad cause." Yet, to-day fortune- 
telling and conjuring are, except when practised as a show 
or stage performance, regarded as impostures deserving the 
House of Correction. As a specimen of the truly pious 
style of explanation, the following quotation is presented 
— " It may seem surprising that Jehovah should so far give 
countenance to a false religion as to permit these deceivers 
to imitate the miracles of his servants. But this was a con- 
test between the votaries of the true Grod and the 
worshippers of demons. The necromancers were, there- 
fore, suffered to succeed in some instances, to encourage 
them to persevere in their opposition, that the victory of 
Jehovah might be the more triumphant, and their defeat 
the more mortifying and complete." 

To judge by the standard of to-day, the whole account 
of these miracles is in the highest degree unreasonable ; 
even the most pious Theist, if he claimed for Grod the power 

* Jones's Biblical Encyclopaedia. 



ITS AUTHENTICITY AXD CEEDIBILITT. 185 



to turn a rod into a serpent, would hesitate to concede the 
same power to the sorcerers and magicians of Egypt. The 
throwing down the rod by Aaron, its change into a serpent, 
or dragon, as some versions put it, and the swallowing the 
other rods, form a juggler's display without purpose or 
utility, because God has already predestined that the signs 
should not produce any effect Vviiatever upon Pharaoh. It 
is under colour of such a narrative, and of the texts in 
yarious parts of the Eible relating to witches and wizards, 
that the most monsti^ous beliefs have prevailed amongst 
Christian nations of all classes, and which follies, although 
nearly extirpated in most brutal fashion by the pious 
witch-hunters of past generations, to this day are found 
occasionally where piety and ignorance predominate. 

Yerses 19, 20, and 21. — These verses clearly threaten to 
change the whole of the water throughout Egypt, and con- 
sequently appear to teach that the icliole of the tcater in 
Egypt was turned to blood ; if so, the 22nd verse would be 
incorrect in stating that the magicians did the same, 
because, if all the tcater had been already turned to blood 
by Aaron, there woidd not be any left for the magicians to 
operate upon. Aben Ezra, seeing this difficulty, asks 
what waters the Egyptian magicians, could change mto 
blood, and suggests that they might have changed the sub- 
terranean waters.^ We are told that this plague was 
throughout the whole of the land of Egypt ; if so, the Jews 
must have suffered equally with the Egyptians. In support 
of the views put forward by those who regard these plagues 
as according with Egyptian climatic conditions, Cahen 
remarks that the Xile always reddens as it becomes swollen 
and troubled at the time of the inundations. 

Chap. vii. in the Hebrew has 28 verses — that is, it includes 
the first 4 verses of chap. viii. 

Chap, viii., v. 9. — Grlory over me when shall I entreat 
for thee." These words are not very clear. The Douay has, 
" Set me a time v/hen I shall pray for thee." 

Yerse 16. — "Lice." Kalisch has gnats ;" the Douay, 
" sciniphs," this being merely the putting into English 
letters the Greek of the Septuagint scniplies, which Cahen 
renders gnats." 

^ Cahen, Exode, p. 28. 



186 



EXODUS : 



Verses 17 and 18. — Had it not been for the previous 
transformation of non-existing water, it would scarcely be 
a matter for wonder that the magicians could not turn the 
dust into lice, when we are told that all the dust had been 
previously changed by Aaron. 

Verse 21. — " Swarms of flies." Josephus says these 
were " various sorts of pestilential creatures and this is, 
to some extent, endorsed by the marginal reading of our 
Bible, " a mixture of noisome beasts." Aben Ezra makes 
it "crowds of wild beasts ;" C^henhsiS^'tmrnelanffed' insects;'' 
Kalisch, "the beetle." 

Verses 22 and 23. — It appears from these verses as if the 
Jews had been equal participators in all the evils attaching 
to the previous plagues. It is here, for the first time, that 
any protection to the Israelites is spoken of. Josephus 
says that, after the fourth plague, Pharaoh would have let 
the Hebrew men and women go away to sacrifice, but he 
would not let them take their children.* 

Chap, ix., V. 10. — What kind of beasts could the boils 
break out upon, when all the cattle were killed by murrain ? 
In verse 6 it is expressly stated that " all the cattle of 
Egypt died." 

Verse 16. — " And in very deed for this cause have I 
raised thee up, for to show in thee my power ; and that my 
name may be declared throughout all the earth." Cahen 
observes that, notwithstanding the God of the Jews did 
this that his name might be known through alL the earth, 
yet that a large majority of humankind knew nothing of the 
Pentateuch, or of the Hebrew Deity. Even at the present 
day there are millions who live and die, never hearing of the 
plagues of Egypt. 

Verses 20 and 21. — " He that feared the word of the 
Lord among the servants of Pharaoh made his servants 
and his cattle flee into the houses. And he that regarded 
not the word of the Lord left his servants and his cattle in 
the field." There is no account here of Grod's words being 
communicated to Pharaoh and the Egyptians. Perhaps a 
passage has been lost from the text. The Samaritan codex 



^ Antiquities, book 2, c. 14. 



ITS AUTIIEXTICITT AND CREDIBILITY. 



187 



adds that Moses did tell Pharaoh. The writer of these 
verses ought to have remembered that all the cattle of 
Egypt were killed by the murrain, but he would then have 
had to explain how cattle already dead could flee from the 
field to escape being killed by the hail. 

Verse 28. — Josephus says that, after the hail, Pharaoh 
" bid Moses take the Hebrews away with their wives and 
children, but to leave their cattle behind."'* 

Verse 30. — " But as for thee and thy servants, I know that 
ye will not yet fear the Lord Grod." The Douay has, " do 
not yet fear the Greneva has, " I know, afore I pray, ye 
will feare before the face of the Lord Grod." Kalisch argues 
that the Douay is the correct rendering. Cahen intimates, 
following the Eabbis, that the word " not" has been left out 
in the Hebrew text. 

Chap. X. V. 9. — By this, and verse 25, it appears that Moses 
still pursued a policy of equivocation towards Pharaoh, 
notwithstanding that Grod had so manifested his power 
against the Egyptians. The request made by the Jewish 
prophet is not that the Israelites may be liberated, but that 
they may be temporarily released for the purposes of a 
sacrifice. 

Verse 13. — " And Moses stretched forth his rod over the 
land of Egypt, and the Lord brought an east wind upon 
the land all that day, and all that night ; and when it was 
morning, the east wind brought the locusts." The Greneva 
version calls the locusts " grasshoppers." Cahen translates 
the words " east wind" as " south wind," following the 
Septuagint. The Douay has " a burning wind," after the 
Vulgate, which has ventus urens.'" Kalisch defends our 
version, remarking that " It has frequently been asserted 
that an east wind could not have brought the locusts into 
Egypt, because these insects always wander south to north, 
and because they cannot well fly over water, and would, 
therefore, have perished in the Eed Sea before reaching 
Egypt." Kalisch regards neither of these arguments as 
sufficient. 

Verse 14. — " And the locusts went up over all the land 



* Antiquities, book 2, chap. 14. 



188 



EXODUS : 



of Egypt, and rested in all the coasts of Egypt ; very 
grievous were they ; before them there were no such locusts 
as they, neither after them shall be such." Cahen remarks 
that efoel, describing, in a very poetic fashion, a plague of 
four kinds of locusts (Joel, chap, ii.), uses very similar 
language. Kalisch says that the two passages have been 
regarded as contradictory, but seeks to explain them^' by 
alleging that in Exodus the quantity, and in Joel the 
number of species, is the feature unparalleled. 

Verse 19. — " And Jehovah turned a mighty strong west 
wind, which took away the locusts, and cast them into the 
Red Sea." Eor " west wind" the original Hebrew of this 
passage has "wind of the sea" — that is, of course, the 
Mediterranean Sea, from which westerly winds blew over 
the land of Canaan, but not over Egypt. This expression 
obviously could not have been familiarly used in this way 
till some time after the people were settled in the land of 
Canaan, when they would naturally employ " wind of the 
sea," " seaward," to express " west wind," " westward," 
(1st K., vii. 25, 1st Ch., ix. 24, 2nd Ch., iv. 4), though 
they had also other ways of expressing the west (Jo., 
xxiii. 4, 1st Ch., xii. 15, Is., xlv. 6). It is evident that 
neither Moses nor one of his age could have invented this 
form of expression, either while wandering in the wilderness, 
or even when, in the last year, according to the story, they 
had reached the borders of the promised land, and the 
Mediterranean lay then actually to the west of their 
position. Still less could he have used the phrase " wind 
of the sea" to express a westerly wind, with reference to an 
event occurring in the land of Egypt, where the Mediter- 
ranean lay to the north, and the Red Sea to the east. And 
the same expression occurs in many other places of the 
Pentateuch, as Gr., xii. 8, xiii. 14, xxviii. 14, E., xxvi. 22, 27, 
xxvii. 12, xxxvi. 27, 32, N., ii. 18, iii. 23. xi. 31, xxxiv. 6, 
XXXV. 5, D., i. 7, iii. 27, xxxiii. 23. 

It may, perhaps, be said that the Hebrews retained their 
own language, and their old forms of expression, after they 
went down to Egypt, and so used mechanically, as it were, 



^ Exode, p. 40 ; and Exodus, p. 168. 



ITS ArTHENTICITT A^T) CEEBIBILITT. 189 



the word "sea" for ''west," though so inappropriate. If 
this were the only difficnlty to be met, such an explanation 
might be admitted. As it is, the phenomenon in question 
is but one of many like phenomena, as e.g., that, in Genesis, 
xli. 6, the " east" wind is spoken of as a " parching" wind, 
which, as G-esenius observes, " it certainly is in Palestine, 
but not in Egypt, whence the LXX. in that j)lace write 
' south-west' wind instead of ' east' wind," and is very 
strongly suggestive of a later date of composition, for those 
parts, at least, of the Mosaic narrative in which it occurs.^ 
Verses 21, 22, and 23. — And the Lord said imto 
Moses, Stretch out thine hand toward heaven, that there 
may be darkness over the land of Egypt, even the darkness 
which may be felt. And Moses stretched forth his hand 
toward heaven ; and there was a thick darkness in all the 
land of Egypt three days. They saw not one another, 
neither rose any from his place for three days ; but all the 
children of Israel had lio-ht in their dwellings." The diffi- 
culties as to this miracle become greater when you consider 
that the children of Israel were spread all over Egypt 
(chap. i. V. 7), and that they lodged in the same houses 
with Egyptians (chap. iii. v. 22), and that their dwellings 
were frequently in the same neighbourhoods. Darkness 
and light must have been near neighbours, audit is curious 
to consider whether, if an Egyptian and Israelite were at 
the time of the plague in the same room, light or 
darkness would prevail. Kalisch remarks that in the 
Septuagint, verse 23, it states, " neither rose any man from 
his bed." Kalisch objects to the Septuagint version as 
improbable. Does the learned doctor mean by so 
objecting that the narrative of this plague, as recorded in 
our version, bears an air of probability ? To a plain mind, 
a patch-work of light and darkness over the whole of a 
country is about as great an improbability as can well be 
conceived. 

Verse 29. — "And Moses said, Thou has spoken weU; I 
will see thy face again no more." Tet, in chap. xi. v. 8, 
we find Moses again in the presence of Pharaoh. 



* Colenso, part ii., pp. 199 and 200. 



190 



EXODUS : 



Cliap. xi. V. 3. — "And the Lord gave the people favour 
in the sight of the Egyptians. Moreover the man Moses 
was very great in the land of Egypt, in the sight of 
Pharaoh's servants, and in the sight of the people." And 
the Lord gave the people favour. The Douay reads, " And 
the Lord luill give favour to his people." Our version is 
evidently incorrect, because the Egyptians afterwards 
suffered another plague, which would have been cruel and 
unnecessary had they already granted or been favourable 
to the wish of the Israelites. " And the man Moses was 
very great." Moses can scarcely be supposed to have 
written this of himself. 

V^erse 5. — Commenting on this verse, Cahen remarks 
that ten righteous men would have been enough to have 
saved Sodom, but here thousands of innocent beings are 
condemned for one man's crime. 

Groethe quaintly says — "The petition (of Moses and 
Aaron) was thus refused ; and, with plagues oversweeping 
the land, evermore pressingly renewed, ever more obstinately 
denied. But the excited Hebrews, in the prospect of a 
land of heritage promised by an ancient tradition, in the 
hope of independence and self-government, recognised no 
further duties. Under the pretence of a universal feast, 
they borrowed from their neighbours vessels of gold and 
silver, and at the moment when the Egyptians thought the 
Israelites occupied with a harmless festivity, an inverted 
Sicilian vespers was undertaken ; the foreigner murdered 
the native, the guest the host ; and, guided by a savage 
policy, they smote only the firstborn, that, in a land where 
primogeniture enjoyed so many privileges, the selfishness of 
the younger sons might be occupied, and the instantaneous 
vengeance avoided by a swift flight. The artifice suc- 
ceeded ; the murderers were thrust out instead of being 
punished. Later only the King gathered his host ; but the 
chariots and horsemen, otherwise so terrible to foot- 
soldiers, fought, on marshy ground, an unequal fight with 
the light and light-armed rearguard, probably with the 
same resolute, daring band who had already exercised 
themselves with the perilous universal murder, and whom, 
in the sequel, we cannot but recognise and distinguish by 
their horrible deeds. "^' 



* Westcestlicher Divan. Israel in the Wilderness. 



ITS AUTHENTICITY AKD CREDIBILITY. 



191 



Chap. xii. v. 17. — "And ye shall observe the feast of 
unleavened bread ; for in this selfsame day have I brought 
your armies out of the land of Egypt : therefore shall ye 
observe this day in your generations by an ordinance for 
ever." This would seem to be a commandment given after 
the Exodus. The Douay, instead of " have I brought," has 
I will bring." Kalisch and Cahen translate in accordance 
with our version. 

Reading verses 3 and 6 attentively, portions of this 
chapter have the appearance of being later additions, 
applying to an occasion of the passover subsequent to the 
flight. 

Verses 21, 22, 23, and 28.—" Then Moses called for all 
the elders of Israel, and said unto them. Draw out and take 
you a lamb according to your families, and kill the pass- 
over. And ye shall take a bunch of hyssop, and dip it in 
the blood that is in the bason, and strike the lintel and the 
tAvo side posts ^YLth. the blood that is in the bason ; and none 
of you shall go out at the door of his house until the 
morning. Eor the Lord will pass through to smite the 
Egyptians ; and when he seeth the blood upon the lintel, 
and on the t\YO side posts, the Lord will pass over the door, 
and will not suffer the destroyer to come in unto your 
houses to smite you. And the children of Israel went 
away, and did as the Lord had commanded Moses and 
Aaron, so did they." Colenso comments very fully on 
these verses. He says* : — 

" In one single day the whole immense population of 
Israel, as large as that of London, was instructed to keep 
the passover, and actually did keep it. I have said ' in one 
single day,' for the first notice of any such feast to be kept 
is given in this very chapter, where we find it written, 
verse 12, ' I will pass through the land of Egypt this night, 
and will smite all the first-born in the land of Egypt, both 
man and beast.' 

" It cannot be said that they had notice several days 
beforehand, for they Avere to 'take' the lamb on the tenth 
day of the month, and ' kill' it on the fourteenth (vv. 3, 6), 



^ Part i. p. 54. 



192 



EXOBTTS : 



and so verse 12 only means to say ^ on thtt nigtt — ^the 

night of the fourteenth — I will pass through the land of 
Egypt.' For the expression in chap. v. v. 12 is distinctly — 
as in chap. xiii. v. 8, and so chap. v. v. 14 — ' tliis day shall 
be unto you for a memorial and, besides, in the chapter 
preceding, chap. xi. v. 4, we read, ' And Moses said [to 
Pharaoh] , Thus saith Jehovah, ahout onidnight will I go out 
into the midst of Egypt, and all the first-bom in the land 
of Egypt shall die,' where there can be no doubt that the 
* midnight' then next at hand is intended. It is true that 
in the story as it now stands, the directions about ' taking' 
the lamb on the tenth day, and ' keeping' it tiU the 
fourteenth, are perplexing and conti^adictory. 

" ' Moses called all the elders of Israel.' We must sup- 
pose, then, that the ' elders' lived somewhere near at hand. 
But where did the two millions live ? And how could the 
order to keep the passover have been conveyed, with its 
minutest particulars, to each individual household m. this 
vast community in one day — rather in twelve hours^ since 
Moses received the command on the very same day on 
which they were to kill the passover at even (Exodus, 
chap. xii. v. 6) ? 

" It was absolutely necessary that the notice should be 
distinctly given to each separate family. Eor it was a 
matter of life and death. Upon the due performance of the 
divine command it depended whether Jehovah should 
' stride across' the threshold (see Is., chap. xxxi. v. 5), and 
protect the house from the angel of death, or not. And 
yet the whole matter was perfectly new to them. The 
specific directions — about choosing the lamb, killing it at 
even, sprinkling its blood, and eating it with unleavened 
bread, ' not raw, nor sodden at all with water, but roast 
with fire,' ^ with their loins girded, their shoes on their feet, 
and their stafi* in their hand' — were now for the first time 
communicated to Moses, by him to the elders, and by them 
to the people. These directions, therefore, could not have 
been conveyed by any mere sign, intimating that they were 
now to carry into execution something about which they 
had been informed before. They must be plainly and fully 
delivered to each individual head of a family, or to a number 



ITS AUTHEXTICITY AXD CREDIBILITY. 193 

of them gathered together, though these, of course, might 
be ordered to assist in spreading the intelligence to. others, 
but so that no single household should be left uninformed 
upon the matter. 

" This would be done most easily if Tve could suppose that 
the whole Hebrew commiinit^' lived as closely together as 
possible, in one great city. In that case, we should have 
to imagine a message of this nature, upon which life and 
death depended, conveyed without fail to every single family 
in a population as large as that of London, between sunrise 
and sunset, and that, too, without their having had any 
pre^ious notice whatever on the subject, and without any 
preparations having been made beforehand to facilitate such 
a communication. 

The story, however, will not allow us to suppose that 
they were living in any such city at all. Having so large 
flocks and herds, ' even very much cattle' (Ex., chap. xii. 
v. 38), many of them must have lived scattered over the 
large extent of grazing ground required ujider their 
circumstances ; and, accordingly, they are represented as 
still living in ' the land of ^Groshen' (Ex., chap. x. v. 26). 
But how large must have been the extent of this land ? 
We can form some judgment on this point by considering 
the number of lambs which (according to the story) must 
have been killed for the passover. The command was, 
* They shall take to them every man a lamb, according to 
the house of their fathers, a lamb for an house ; and if the 
household be too little for the lamb, let him and his neigh- 
bour, next unto his house, take it according to the number 
of the souls ; every man, according to his eating, shall make 
your count for the lamb' (Ex., chap. xii. w. 3 and 4). 
Josephus {cle Bell. Jv.d., vi. g. 3), reckons ten persons on 
an average for each lamb ; but, he says, ' many of us are 
twenty in a company.' Kurtz allows fifteen or twenty. 
Taking ten as the average number, tT\-o millions of people 
would require about 200,000 lambs ; taking twenty, they 
would require 100,000. Let us take the mean of these, 
and suppose that they required 150,000. And these -were 
to be all male lambs of the first year' (Ex.^ chap. xii. v. 5). 
"We may assume that there were as mRnj female lambs of 



194 



EXODUS : 



the first year, raaking 300,000 lambs of the first year 
altogether. 

" But these were not all. For if the 150,000 lambs that 
ivere killed for the passover comprised all the males of that 
year, there would have been no rams or wethers left of 
that year for the increase of the flock. And, as the same 
thing would take place in each successive year, there would 
never be any rams or wethers, but ewe-sheep innumerable ; 
or, indeed, when the first set of rams died out, there would 
be no more propagation, and both ewes and rams would 
cease. Instead, then, of 150,000, we may suppose 200,000 
male lambs of the first year, and 200,000 female lambs, 
making 400,000 lambs of the first year altogether. The 
total number of sheep in an average flock of all ages will 
be about j^t'e times that of the increase in one season of 
lambing. So that 400,000 lambs of the first year implies a 
flock of 2,000,000 sheep and lambs of all ages. Taking, 
then, into account the fact that they had also large herds, 
* even very much cattle,' we . may fairly reckon that the 
Hebrews, though so much oppressed, must have possessed 
at this time, according to the story, more than two millions 
of sheep and oxen.* 

" What extent of land, then, would aU these have required 
for pasturage ? Let us allow five sheep to an acre. Then 
the sheep alone of the Israelites would have required 
400,000 acres of grazing land — an extent of country con- 
siderably larger than the whole county of Hertfordshire or 
Bedfordshire, and more than twice the size of Middlesex, 
besides that which would have been required for the oxen. 

" "We must, then, abandon altogether the idea of the 
people living together in one city, and must suppose a great 
body of them to have been scattered about in towns and 
villages, throughout the whole land of Groshen, in a district 
of 400,000 acres — that is, t^venty-five miles square [625 

* This is hardly the full extent of the diflQcul ty, for. as the lamhs 
were to be free from blemish, they would be only a selection from a 
still larger number. Maimonides declares that, accordiDg to Jewish 
tradition, the four days between the taking and sacrifice of the lamb 
were to afford time to see that the inteudecj victim vras f^auUlcss 
(Kaliscb, Exodus, p. 190). 



ITS AL'THE>'IICITY iJN'D CEEDIBILITY. 



195 



square miles], larger tlian Hertfordshire (391,141 acres). 
But, ttien, the difficulty of informing such a population 
■ would be enormously increased, as well as that of their 
" borrowing, when summoned in the dead of night (Ex., chap, 
xii. w. 29-36), to the extent implied in the story. For, 
even if we supposed the first message to prepare, kill, and 
eat the Paschal lamb, communicated to the whole people 
within twelve hoiu'-s, and acted on, when they were abroad 
in full daylight — or that they actually had had a previous 
notice to ' take' the lambs on the tenth, and ' keep' them to 
the fourteenth — yet how coidd the second, notice, to start, 
have been so suddenly and completely circulated ? Xot 
one was ' to go out at the door of liis house until the 
morning' (Ex., chap. xii. v. 22). Consequently, they could 
.not have known anything of what had happened in Pharaoh's 
house and city, as also amiong his people throughout the 
whole 4and of Egypt' (Ex.. chap. xii. v. 29). until the 
summons from Moses, or, at least, the news of the event 
reached each individual house. The whole population of 
Hertfordshire, bv the census of 1851, was considerably 
under 200,000 (167,29S). "We are to imagine, then, its 
towns and villages increased more than tenfold in size or in 
number. And, then, we are to believe that every single 
household throughout the entire coimtry was warned in 
twelve hours to keep the Eeast of the Passover, was taught 
how to keep it, and actually did keep it ; and that, further, 
they were warned against midnight to start at once in 
hurried flight for the wilderness when each family was shut 
up closely in its ovvTL house, and strictly forbidden to come 
out of it till summoned, and they could not, therefore, com- 
municate the tidings freely as by day from one person to 
a number of others." 

Chap. xii. v. 29. — In this verse is related the horrible con- 
summation of a series of plagues which God had caused to 
fall on the Egyptians. And why all this punishment? 
Was it because the Egyptians, as a nation, had oppressed 
the Israelites ? If so, the cattle, the trees, and the green 
herbs were included in the punishment, although thev 
could not have participated in the offence : besides which, 
the Egyptians could never have oppressed the IsraeLitea if 



196 



EXODUS S 



the oppression had not been permitted by the Omnipotent 
Deity who had sworn to Abraham to protect and cherish 
them. "Was the punishment becanse Pharaoh would not 
let the children of Israel go ? If so, what had the first- 
born of the " maid-servant in the mill, and of the captive in 
the dungeon," to do with Pharaoh's offence? How 
could these poor w^retches prevent the decree of Egypt's 
mighty chieftain ? But even Pharaoh was specially 
controlled by Grod ; in chap. iv. v. 21, chap. vii. 
V. 3, chap. ix. - w. 12 and 16, chap. x. yv. 1, 20, 
and 27, chap. xi. v. 10, and chap. xiv. v. 4, we have distinct 
repetitions of the statement that Grod himself hardened 
Pharaoh's heart and prevented him from allowing the 
children of Israel to go. Then, why all this punishment ? 
In chap. ix. v. 16, chap. x. v. 2, and chap. xiv. v. 4, we are 
told that Grod raised Pharaoh up for the very purpose of 
smiting him and his people, so that Grod might perform the 
miracles, that the name of Grod might be declared 
throughout all the earth, that the Israelites might worship 
the Lord, and that the name of Grod might be honoured 
amongst the Egyptians ; and in seeking to attain this 
result, which, to this day, has not been arrived at, Grod 
plagues and torments the Egyptian nation with most 
painful and destructive plagues, killing the first-born in 
every family, from the monarch who sat on the throne to 
the captive in the dungeon, and ending by drowning 
Pharaoh and his army in the Eed Sea. The religious 
thinker, attempting to examine this horrible picture, might, 
perhaps, be tempted to blaspheme by questioning Grod's 
justice and goodness, were he not saved from this dilemma 
by a consciousness of the falsity and absurdity of the whole 
tale. According to chap. ix. vv. 3 and 6, all the cattle of 
the Egyptians, their horses, asses, camels, oxen, and sheep, 
were killed by the murrain ; by verse 10 of the same 
chapter, a boil breaking forth with blains is sent upon the 
same cattle ; by verse 19 the Egyptians are cautioned to 
gather in theii' cattle, which, if the preceding verses be true, 
were ..already dead, lest they should again die -from the 
effects of the hail, and he who feared the Lord amongst the 
servants of Pharaoh made his dead cattle flee into the house 



ITS AriHEXTICITT A^^) CEEDIBILITY. 



197 



lest they ^^lioiild be killed again, and those who did not 
fear the Lord had their cattle killed a second time by the 
hail ; in chap. x. v. 25, Closes asks Pharaoh to give him 
some of his iidce Jellied cattle that he may kill them a third 
time as sacrifices to the Lord ; in chap. xii. y. 29, God, in 
the night, kill^ the first-born c-f' all the cattle, some of which 
must have been thus ilirice killed ; yet, despite all this, we 
finrl Pharaoh with an army of chariots, horses, and horse- 
men, who are finally and ii^^ecoverably got rid of by being 
drowned in the Eed Sea. 

Yerses 37 and 3 S.— "And the children of Israel journeyed 
from Eameses to Succoth, about six hundred thousand on 
foot that were men, beside childi^en. And a mixed multi- 
tude went up also with them : and fiocks, and herds, even 
very much cattle." Cahen says, This suj^poses a nation 
of at least 3,000,000 indi^fiduals ; when camped with their 
beasts and camels, they would have occupied at least a 
square league of surface, and in marching must have 
extended into a column many miles lono\ It is difficidt 
for such a multitude to travel in any country, and very 
difficult indeed to obtain nourishment in a desert."' After 
reading Colenso's comments, which are subjoined, the reader 
should take De Quincey's masterly essay on the Eevolt of 
the Tartars, from which he may judo-e the difSculties 
attending the exodus of any cattle-holding people. The 
Bishop of Xatal says : — 

''It appears from Is"., i. 3. ii. 32, that these six hundred 
thousand were the men in the prime of life, ' from twenty 
years old and upward, all that were able to go forth to war 
in Israel.' And this large number of able-bodied warriors 
implies a total population of at least t^vo millions. Here, 
then, we have this vast body of people of all ao-es. summoned 
to start, accordino; to the story, at a moment's notice, and 
actually started, not one beincr left behind, together with all 
their multitudinous flocks and herds. I do not hesitate to 
declare this statement to be utterly incredible and im- 
possible. Were an English village of (say) two thousand 
people to be called suddenly to set out in this way, with 
old people, young children, and infants, what indescribable 
distress there would be ! But what shall be said of a 



198 



EXODUS : 



thour^and times as; many ? And what of the sick and infirm, 
or the women in recent or imminent childbirth, in a popula- 
tion like that of . London, w^here the births are 264 a-day, or 
about one every fi ve minutes ? 

" Bnt this is bi it a very small part of the difficulty. We 
are required to b elieve that, in one single day, the order to 
start was commi tnicated suddenly, at midnight, to every 
single family of < ?Yery town and village throughout a tract 
of country as 1 atrge as Hertfordshire, but ten times as 
thickly peopled ; that, in obedience to such order, having 
first ' borrowed' very largely from their Egyptian neigh- 
bours in all di: sections (though, if we are to suppose 
Egyptians occuj >ying the same territory with the Hebrews, 
the extent of it must be very much increased), they then 
came in from all. parts of the land of Groshen to Eameses, 
bringing with t^ aem the sick and infirm, the young and the 
aged ; further, ^that, since receiving the summons, they had 
sent out to gat] tier in all their flocks and herds, spread over 
so wide a district, and had driven them also to Rameses ; 
and, lastly, tha t, having done all this since they were roused 
at midnight, t'bey were started again from Eameses that 
very same day,, and marched on to Succoth, not leaving a 
single sick or infirm person, a single woman in childbirth, 
or even a ' single hoof (E., x. 26), behind them !" 

Verses 40 and 41. — " Now the sojourning of the children 
of Israel, who dwelt in Egypt, was four hundred and thirty 
years. And it came to pass, at the end of the four hundred 
and thirty yesars, even the selfsame day it came to pass, that 
all the hosts of the Lord went out from the land of Egypt." 
Stephen, in Acts^ chap. vii. v. 6, says it was four hundred 
years. Dr. John Pye Smith, with all his orthodoxy, felt 
that there was a great difficulty to encounter, and writes as 
follows* : — 

" Many comprehend in this reckoning the time from the 
communication to Abra^ham (Genesis, chap. xv. v. 13), or 
his entrance into Canaan, ten years earlier. This will leave 
only two hundred and fifteen years for the sojourn in 

^ First lines of Christian Tlieolog.y,p. 459, as to Hebron. Dr. John 
Pyfe Smith coul(i hardly have seen First Chroniqles, chap, xxiii. v. 19a 
;(See Genesis, p,. §4}. 



ITS ATJTHEOTICiTT AITD CEEDIBILITT. 199 



Egypt. Yet, during that period, the population increased 
to what would give 603,550 tcarriors, men above twenty- 
years old, not including the tribe of Levi (Numbers, chap. i. 
V. 46). Hence, it is scarcely imaginable that the whole 
number of the nation could be less than two millions ; an 
increase from seventy-two, which is quite impossible. Sup- 
posing that they doubled themselves every fourteen years, 
the number would have been less than half a million. But 
if four hundred and thirty years be taken, the increase is 
probable. AVe see, also, that the males of the whole family 
of Kohath were 8,600 (Numbers, cha]3. iii. v. 28) ; yet 
Kohath had only four sons (Exodus, chap. vi. v. 18), from 
whom the grandsons mentioned are eight in number, none 
being mentioned from Hebron, who, perhaps, died childless. 
Also, that the father of Moses should have married the 
daughter of Levi, appears impossible. Surely, then, one or 
more generations have fallen out from the table (Exodus, 
chap. vi. vv. 17 and 18)." 

The Samaritan has, " the sojourning of the children of 
Israel and of their fathers, while they sojourned in the 
land of Canaan and in the land of Egypt, was 430 years."* 
This reading would avoid, to some extent, the difficulty as 
to the 430 years. Cahen says, " Kohath, one of the first 
priests, and son of Levi, died 133 years old. His son, 
Amram, 137 years. Moses, Am^ram's son, 120 years. 
These added together only make 390 years, leaving 40 
deficient. But there were also 40 years between the 
leaving Egypt and the death of Moses, making the difi'er- 
ence 80 years. Moreover, these three generations can have 
hardly followed one at the end of the other, but must have 
been, to some extent, concurrent, still further increasing 
the deficiency. In order to make up the 430 years, some 
go back to the time of Abraham. But these are met by 
the difficulty that G-enesis, chap. xv. v. 13, says that the 
Egyptians shall torment the Israelites for 400 years." 
Josephus says expressly " 430 years after Abraham came 
into Canaan, but 215 only after Jacob removed into 
Egypt." 

Verse 46. — In this verse we have one of many illustra- 
* Colenso, part 1, pp. 91 to 95. Cahen, Exode, p. 50, 



200 



EXOBUS : 



tions of tlie value of the Massoretic points. The words 

nm BeBITh, in^ ACh(?D, b:]^"^ lAKeL, "In one house 
it shall be eaten." According to the pointing of the Keri, 
the last word is active; the pointing, according to the 
Kethiv, makes it passive, and two inferences are deduced 
from this in the Talmud."^ Eabbi Jehudah maintpans that 
the man who partakes of the passover HE must eat it in 
one place, but that the passover itself may be divided, and 
a part of it eaten by another company in another place ; 
basing his argument upon the Keri, Jie must eat it at one 
'place, Whereas Eabbi Simeon maintains that the passover 
itself IT, must be eaten in one place, and cannot be divided 
between two different companies in different places, though 
the man himself, after having eaten his passover at home, 
may go to another place and partake of another company's 
passover ; basing his argument upon the Kethiv, it must 
he eaten in one place. 

Chap. xiii. v. 2. — " Sanctify unto me all the first-born, 
whatsoever openeth the womb among the children of Israel, 
both of man and of beast ; it is mine." By this and several 
other texts, it is stated that the first-born, both of m.an and 
beast, were devoted to the Lord. It is quite clear that the 
beasts so devoted were to be sla.ughtered as sacrifices, but 
it is not so clear as to the fate of the human beings. There 
are special regulations for some sorts of redemption, by 
payment, but what were the penalties falling on the 
unredeemed ? By Leviticus, chap, xxvii. w. 28, 29, and the 
history of burnt offering by Jephtha of his own daughter, 
Judges, chap, xi., it appears that human sacrifices were 
parcel of the Jewish religious rites ; a portion of their 

^ * The Keri is the text as written in the margin, the Kethiv the 
literal text. The Keri velo Kethiv gives the marginal insertion of 
words not found in the text, supplemented to elucidate it. The Kethiv 
velo Keri shows the omission in the margin of entire words written in 
the text, but suppressed to remove difficulties. Bellamy says, " The 
Keri translators endeavour to give the sense of the text, and frequently 
omit some important word, or attempt to alter the original. But by 
Chetib (or Kethiv) is meant the true text, which should be so trans- 
lated as not to reject a single word in the original. The Keri and 
Chetib translators stand opposed to each other, 
t Jacob Ben Chajim's Introduction, p. 31, 



ITS AUTHE^fTICITT AISTD CEEDIBILITT. 



201 



prisoners seems also to have been sacrificed to the Lord 
after each victory, as in other idolatrous nations ; and in 
Jephtha's case we find these remarkable words after the 
account of the sacrifice, " And it was a custom in Israel." 
Kalisch indignantly denies the allegations made by somei 
writers, which imply frequency of human sacrifice amongst 
the Jews.* Eunsen suggests that the sanctification of the 
first-born male was to prevent the practice (amongst the 
Hebrews) of sacrificing to Moloch, which was common with 
the Syrian tiibes. The Douay says, in a foot-note to the 
above verse, that the first-born of the beasts were to be 
sacrificed, but that the first-born Hebrew males were to be 
deputed to the ministry in divine worship. The text bears 
the view precisely opposite to Kalisch, Bimsen, and the 
Douay, especially when compared with Le^dticus, chap, 
xxvii. V. 29, K'one devoted, which shall be devoted of men, 
shall be redeemed ; but shall surely be put to death." This 
is surely explicit enough without even such an illustration 
as that of the case of Jephtha's daughter. 

Verse 5. — ^After " Jebusites" the Septuagint adds " the 
Gergashites and the Perizzites." According to Cahen, the 
Samaritan version is the same as the Septuagint.f 

Verse 6. — " Seven days thou shalt eat." The Septuagint 
has " six days." In Dent., chap. xvi. v. 8, the text of our 
version says, Six days shalt thou eat. ' 

Verse 8. — The Douay difiers from c jr translation, which 
represents Grod as directing the Israelite to tell his son tliat 
the feast is lield because of tliat which the Lord did ; while the 
Douay directs the Israelite to tell his son " what the Lord 
did," but not that the feast is held because of it. 

Verse 9. — A sign to thee upon thy hand, and for a 
memorial between thy eyes. "J Cahen says that " Before 
writing was known or taught, they vrere obliged to institute 
mnemonique means for recalling the historical events fit to 
consolidate the national unity. Even to-day anniversary 
fetes serve similarly as historic schools for the people." 
Kalisch says, " Eor a people little practised in abstract 

Exodus, pp. 186 and 187. 
t See Commentary on Genesis, p. 95. 
% See V. 16, in which similar language is used. 



202 



EXOBTJS : 



ideas, and sunk in slavish mental torpor, the prudent legis- 
lator thought it advisable to facilitate the understanding of 
the laws by visible, external symbols and signs ; and, for 
this purpose, he chose — 1. Memorials to be borne on the 
arm and the forehead (phylacteries pbi^n TePheLUST) ; 
2. Memorials to be written on the doorposts of the houses 
(nWD MeZZTJTh, Deut., vi. 9, xi. 20) ; and 3. Fringes 
and threads to be worn on the borders of the garments 
(m^^if TsITseTh, JSTum. xv. 37-11) ; with respect to which 
it is expressly said (vv. 39 and 40), 'And you shall see 
them, and shall remember all the commandments of the 
Lord and do them.' These three precepts, and the practical 
support they afford, are comprised in the following Tal- 
mudical passage : — ' He who has Tefillin on his head and 
his arm — and Zizitli on his garment — and a Mesusah on his 
door — ^has every possible guarantee that he will not sin' 
(Menach, 33 b.)." 

Verse 13. — " And if thou wilt not redeem it, then thou 
shalt break his neck." Kalisch says " that it was not cruel 
to order the killing of an unredeemed male unclean animal, 
because it was in the power of the owner to redeem it." 
But the Douay and Cahen, instead of " if thou wilt not," 
translate "if thou do not." So that, if the owner was 
unable to redeem, he was obliged to kill. 

Verses 17 and 18. — " And it came to pass, when Pharaoh 
had let the people go, that Grod led them not through the 
way of the land of the Philistines, although that was near ; 
for Grod said, ' Lest peradventure the people repent when 
they see war, and they return to Egypt.' But G-odled the 
people about, through the way of the wilderness of the Eed 
Sea." Even a devout believer might be sadly puzzled by 
these verses. "Was Grod afraid lest the people should 
repent? and did he express that fear to his confidant. 
Moses, or in what manner, and to whom did Grod speak ? 
Did Grod lead his chosen people into Egypt to avoid all 
wars ? if so, how comes it that we almost immediately hear 
of the battle with the Amalekites ? (vide chap. xvii). Grod's 
fears seem ill-founded, for the Jews (although they had a 
very hard fight with the Amalekites, and one in which they 
were nearly beaten, even with Grod's aid in their favour) 



ITS ArTHEXTICITT AND CREDIBILITY. 



203 



never talked of returning to Egypt, in consequence of that 
fight. The road taken bv the Israelites was rather away 
from than towards the land to which they were journeying. 
The right road was north-east ; the road the Jews went was 
south-east. It is properly less than fourteen days' journey 
from Egypt to Palestine ; the J ews took forty years ! 
Kalisch says, " that from Eaameses to Graza, the most 
southern town of the Philistine Pentapolis, is a straight 
and much-frequented road of about eight or ten days' 
journey." 

Verse 18. — "And the children of Israel went up harnessed 
out ofthe land of Egypt."* The word, D^il^Dn CheMeShlM, 
which is here rendered "harnessed," appears to mean 
" armed," or " in battle array," in all the other passages 
where it occurs. Thus, Joshua,!. 14, "But ye shall pass before 
your brethren armed, all the mighty men of yalour, and help 
them." So, Joshua, iy. 12, "' And the children of Eeuben, and 
the children of Gad, and half the tribe of Manasseh, passed 
oyer armed before the children of Israel, as Moses spake 
unto them." And, Judges, vii. 11, "Then went he down, with. 
Phurah his seryant, unto the outside of the armed men 
that were in the host." 

It is, however, inconceiyable that these down-trodden, 
oppressed people should have been allowed by Pharaoh to 
possess arms, so as to turn out nt a moment's notice 
600,000 armed men. If such a mighty host — nearly nine 
times as great as the whole of "Wellington's army at 
"Waterloo (69,686 men, Alison's "' History of Europe," 
xix. p. 401) — had had their arms in their hands, would they 
not have risen long ago for their liberty, or, at all events, 
would there have been no danger of their rising ? Besides, 
the warriors formed a distinct caste in Egypt, as Herodotus 
teUs us, ii. 165, " being in number, when they are most 
numerous, 160,000, none of whom learn any mechanical art, 
but apply themselves wholly to military affairs." Are we 
to suppose, then, that the Israelites acquired their arms by 
" borrowing" on the night of the exodus ? jS'o thing .what- 
ever is said of this, and the idea itself is an extravagant 
one. But, if even in this or any other way they had come 
* Colenso, part i. p. 48. 



204 



EXODUS : 



to be possessed of arms, is it conceivable that 600,000 
armed men, in tbe prime of life, would have cried out in 
frantic terror, " sore afrrdd," Ex., xiv. 10, when they saw 
that they were being pursued ? 

The difficulty of believing this has led many commen- 
tators to endeavour to explain otherwise, if possible, the 
meaning of the word. Accordingly, in the margin of the 
English Bible we find suggested, instead of " harnessed," or 
" armed," in all the above passages except Joshua, iv. 12, " by 
five in a rank," because the Hebrew word, D^tl^?Dn CheMeShIM, 
has a resemblance to U^DTi CheWeSh, " five." And others 
again explain it to mean " by fifties," as the five thousand 
vvere arranged in the wilderness of Bethsaida, Mark, vi. 40. 

It will be seen at once, however, that these meanings of 
the word will not at all suit the other passages above 
quoted. And, indeed, by adopting the first of them, we 
should only get rid of one difficulty to introduce another 
quite as formidable. For, if 600,000 marched out of Egypt 
" five in a rank," allowing a yard for marching room between 
each rank, they must have formed a column 68 miles long, 
and it would have taken several days to have started them 
all ofi*, instead of their going out all together " that self- 
same day," Ex., xii. 42 and 51. 

But if they did not take it with them out of Egypt, where 
did they get the armour with which, about a month after- 
wards, they fought the Amalekites, Ex., xvii. 8-13, and 
" discomfited them with the edge of the sword?" It may, 
perhaps, be said that they had stripped the Egyptians, 
whom they " saw lying dead upon the seashore," Ex. xiv. 30. 
And so writes Josephus, Ant., ii. 16, 6: — "On the next 
day Moses gathered together the weapons of the Egyptians, 
which were brought to the camp of the Hebrews by the 
current of the sea and the force of the winds assisting it. 
And he conjectured that this also happened by Divine 
Providence, that so they might not be destitute of weapons." 
It is plain that Josephus had perceived the difficulty. The 
Bible story, however, says nothing about this stripping of 
the dead, as surely it must have done if it really took place. 
And though body-armour might have been obtained in this 
way, would swords, e . ■ 1 spears, and shields, in any number, 



ITS AUTHENTICITY AND CEEDIBILITY. 205 



have been washed upon the shore by the waves, or have 
been retained, still grasped in the hands of droY,-ning men ? 

K, then, the historical veracity of this part of the 
Pentateuch is to be maintained, we must believe that 
600,000 armed men (though it is inconceivable how they 
obtained their arms) had, by reason of their long servitude, 
become so debased and inhuman in their cowardice (and 
yet they fought bravely enough with Amalek a month after- 
wards), that they could not strike a single blow for their 
wives and children, or for their own lives and liberties, but 
could only weakly wail and murmur against Moses, saying, 

It had been better for us to serve the Egyptians, than 
that we should die in the wilderness," Ex., xiv. 12. 

Chap. xiv. — Aben Ezra says that we ought not to reflect 
upon the order contained in this chapter to return, so that 
Pharaoh, pursuing the Israelites, might be engulfed in the 
sea, the ways of the eternal are profound, and human 
wisdom nothing before him.* 

Chap, xiv., vv. 19 and 20. — Ani the pillar of the cloud 
went from before their face, and stood behind them. And 
it came bet^veen the camp of the Egyptians and the camp 
of Israel ; and it was a cloud and darlmess to them, but it 
gave Hght by night to these ; so that the one came not near 
the other all the night." The cloud that gave a light to 
the Israelites must have been of a curious nature. The 
Douay, following the Vulgate, has it in the 20th verse, " it 
was a dark cloud, and enlightening the night." Kalisch 
says this rendering is without meaning ; he admits that 
many of the translators have been sadly puzzled by the 
verse, and remarks, "but certainly the text narrates a 
miraculous fact, and it is futile to explain it naturally." 
Cahen, translating the passage, it was a cloud and an 
obscurity, and it enlightened the night," asks what 
enlightened the night ? The Septuagint reads as if the 
darkness of the cloud, deepening into night, prevented any 
communication between the two camps. Dr. John Pye 
Smith sayst : — Throughout the entitle narrative the 
miraculous revelations of &od to Moses are often spoken 

* Oahen, Exode, p. 55. 

•: First Lines Christiaa Tiieolop^y, p. 249. 



206 



EXODUS : 



of as being made in this luminous and awful cloud. It is 
called ' the glory of the Lord.' " It appears to have been 
the general, and probably the invariable, token and known 
proof of the Divine presence. Examples — Exodus, chap, 
xvi. yy. 9 and 10, chap. xxiv. vv. 16 and 17 ; Numbers, chap, 
xii. V. 5, chap. xiv. w. 10 and 14, chap. xvi. w. 19 and 42, 
chap. XX. V. 6 ; Dent., chap. i. w. 30 and 33." 

Verse 7. — Josephus says that Pharaoh took 600 chariots, 
50,000 horsemen, and 200,000 footmen. The Jewish 
historian describes the whole affair with very different 
accessories to those presented in our version. A long 
speech by Moses to the Jews, and long prayer by Moses to 
G-od, are given by Josephus, but are entirely wanting 
here. 

Verse 15. — The Talmud"* says that Moses betook him- 
self, in this critical position, to prayer ; and that God said 
it was not the time to make long prayers while the people 
were in trouble. It is suggested that a portion of the 
Hebrew text preceding this verse has been lost. 

Verses 24 and 25. — Our authorised translation reads, 

The Lord looked unto the host of the Egyptians through 
the pillar of fire and of the cloud, and troubled the host of 
the Egyptians, and took off their chariot wheels that they 
drave them heavily." In the Douay it is, "The Lord, 
looking upon the Egyptian army through the pillar of fire 
and of the cloud, slew their host and overthrew the wheels 
of their chariots, and they were carried into the deep." 
Kalisch says, " confounded the host of the Egyptians, and 
made glide out their chariot wheels, and led them on with 
difficulty." The Septuagint, "and he tied up the axles of 
their chariots, and led them on with force." Aben Ezra 
asked how the Israelites could all cross the Eed Sea in one 
night, and makes them pass in several columns, more than 
two millions of human beings, including women and children 
and baggage, started from their halting ground after night- 
fall, and reached the other side so rapidly that the Egyptians, 
following, were drowTied towards morniag. The story is 
monstrously incredible. 

Verse 31. — " And Israel saw that great work which the 
* Cahen, Exode, p. 58. 



ITS AUTHENTICITY A^J) CEEBIBILITY. 207 



Lord did upon the Egyptians ; and the people feared the 
Lord, and believed the Lord, and his servant Moses." The 
Israelites' belief in the Lord and in his servant Moses was 
of a very unstable nature ; and, notwithstanding all the 
mighty miracles alleged to have been wrought in their 
presence, we find them repeatedly murmuring (chap. xv. 
v. 24, chap. xvi. v. 3), and in a very short time utterly 
repudiating Moses and Grod (chap, xxxii. v. 1). If the 
Israelites frequently doubted Moses and disbelieved in 
Grod, with the terrible series of plagues fresh in their recol- 
lection, can it be wondered that we, to whom they are 
related in a style so incoherent, at this distance of time, 
should also have misgivings as to their truth ? Josephus, 
who is evidently rather staggered by the prodigies he has 
recorded in reference to the Exodus, assures his readers 
that, notwithstanding '''the strangeness of the narrative," 
he delivered every part as he found it in the saered book, 
and he quaintly adds, as to these events, let every one 
determine as he pleases. 

Chap. XV. V. 2. — ''I will prepare him an habitation." 
Kalisch translates this, "I ^ill glorify him," agreeing 
with the Douay. 

Terse 3. — The expression, *^ The Lord is a man of war," 
although not unnatural as an oriental fashion of speaking 
of the deity supposed to have conquered the Egyptians, is 
hardly calculated to inspire us with that love of God alleged 
to be so necessary to our salvation. The Lord is his 
name." The Douay ha«, " The Almighty is his name." 
Cahen, The Eternal is his name." The Vulgate, 
" Dominus qiiasi vir pugnator.''^ 

Verse 8.- — The blast of thy nosti^ils." The Septuagint 
has, " The breath of thy anger." The Vulgate, In sjjirito 
furorisy The Douay, "With the blast of thy anger." 
Kalisch says that it was an old and wide-spread belief that 
" anger sits in the nose," or that anger manifests itself most 
visibly in that part of the face. 

Verse 11. — AVho is hke unto thee, 0 Lord, among the 
Grods?" Who are the Grods ? In the Douay the phi-ase 
is translated, " Who is hke unto thee amongst the strong, 
O Lord?" The Eoman Catholics wished to avoid the sus- 



208 



EXODTJS : 



picion of polytheism. Cahen, " "WTio is like unto tliee 
amongst the mighty?'* The Vulgate, " Quis similis tui in 
fortibusy 

Verses 22, 23, 24, and 25. — " And they went three days 
in the wilderness, and found no water. And when they 
came to Marah, they could not drink of the waters of 
Marah, for they were bitter ; therefore the name of it was 
called Marah. And the people murmured against Moses, 
saying, ' What shall we drink ?' And he cried unto the 
Lord ; and the Lord showed him a tree, which, when he had 
cast into the waters, the waters were made sweet." 
Josephus tells ^ this story differentty. He says that " the 
water being bitter, Moses betook himself to prayer to God, 
that he would change the water from its present badness, 
and make it fit for drinking. And when Grod had granted 
him that favour, he took the top of a stick that lay down at 
his feet, and divided it in the middle, and made the section 
lengthways. He then let it do^vn into the well, and per- 
suaded the Hebrews that God had hearkened to his prayers, 
and had promised to render the water such as they desired 
it to be, in case they would be subservient to him in what 
he should enjoin them to do, and this not after a remiss or 
negligent manner. And when they asked what they wer^ 
to do in order to have the water changed for the better, he 
bid the strongest men among them that stood there to draw 
the water, and told them that, when the greatest part was 
drawn up, the remainder would be fit to drink. So they 
laboured at it till the water was so agitated and purged as 
to be fit to drink." 

Verse 27. — " And they came to Elim, where were twelve 
wells of water, and threescore and ten palm trees ; and they 
encamped there by the waters." Josephus says that " the 
palm treesf were no more than seventy ; and they were ill- 
grown and creeping trees by the want of water, for the 
country about was all parched, and no moisture sufficient to 
water them and make them hopeful and useful was derived 
to them, from the fountains, which were in number twelve ; 



* Antiquities, Book III., chap. i. g 2. 
t Antiquitiesi Book IIL» chap, i, \ d« 



ITS ATJTHEOTICITY AND CREIIIEILITT. 



209 



they were rather a few moist places than springs, which, 
not breaking out of the ground nor rnnning over, could not 
sufficiently water the ti^ees. And when they dug into the 
sand, they met with no water ; and if they took a few drops 
of it into their hands, they found it to he useless, on account 
of its mud. The trees also were too weak to bear fruit, 
for want of being sufficiently cherished and enlivened by 
the water." 

Chap. xvi. w. 3 and 4. — And the childi'en of Israel said 
tmto them, Would to Grod we had died by the hand of the 
Lord in the land of Egypt, when we sat by the flesh-pots, 
and when we did eat bread to the full ; for ye have brought 
us forth into this wilderness, to kill this whole assembly 
with hunger. Then said the Lord unto Moses, Behold, I 
will rain bread from heaven for you ; and the people shall 
go out and gather a certain rate every day, that I may 
prove them, whether they will walk in my law, or no." If 
we may judge by the Israelites' own account, starvation 
could not have been one of the phases of oppression suffered 
by them in Egypt. They appear, if hard worked, at least 
to have been well-fed by their Egyptian rulers. 

Verse 4. — The Lord who spake to Moses was not an 
Omniscient Deity, for he says, " I wiU rain bread from 
heaven for you, etc., that I may prove them whether they 
A^oLl walk in my law or no ;" so that Grod here pourtrayed 
did not know until he had proved the Israelites whether 
they would obey or disobey. '^Kalisch has a most elaborate 
note, giving descriptions of the several sorts of manna 
known in Asia, but none of these correspond with the 
manna of the Bible. 1st. The Bible manna is constant for 
forty years, the natural manna is only found at certain 
seasons. 2nd. The Bible manna is abundant enough to 
feed more than 2,000,000 people ; while, in plentiful years, 
7 00 pounds of manna is a large yield for the whole penin- 
sular of Sinai. 3rd. The Bible manna is the usual nutri- 
tious, satisfying substitute for bread, whilst the natural 
manna is a medical relaxing substance. 4th. The tendency 
on the part of the manna to fall in double quantities the 



* See also Genesis, p. 102. 



210 EXODTTS : 

day before the Sabbath, so as not to fall on seventh day, is 
peculiar to the Bible species. 

Verse 8. — Many critics urge that this verse must be 
misplaced, as Moses had not yet been informed that 
God intended to give the Israelites flesh. Some put vv. 
11 and 12 immediately after v. 3 

Yerses 12 and 13. — This story of the gift of quails is told 
in Numbers, chap, xi., in an entirely different manner ; nor 
does it seem possible to reconcile the two accounts. The 
date of the gift is different ; in Exodus, chap. xv. v. 1, it is 
the fifteenth day of the second month of the wanderings ; 
in Numbers, it is after the twentieth day of the second 
month in the second year of the wanderings. The place of 
the gift of quails is different. In Exodus, it is in the 
wilderness of Sin, between Eiim and Sinai ; in Numbers, it 
is at Taberah. The manner of the gift is very different ; in 
Exodus the quails and manna come on the same day, one 
in the evening and the other in the morning, both being 
given together ; in Numbers the manna is given some time 
before, and it is after the people have grown tired of eating 
manna, and murmur at it, that G-od in anger sends them 
quails. In Numbers Moses is represented as expostulating 
with Deity as to whence the supply of food is to be ob- 
tained ; in Exodus there is no mention of this. In Numbers, 
God plagues and desti^oys the Jews because they ask for 
fiesh-food ; but in Exodus, all record of this vengeance is 
omitted. In Josephus, the gift of quails is placed in order 
of time before the gift of manna. 

Verse 11. — Josephus, omitting the Lord's speech to 
Moses, says, after the gift of quails,* as Moses was lifting 
up his hands in prayer a dev*" fell down ; and Moses, 
when he found it stick to his hands, supposed this was also 
come for food from God to them : he tasted it ; and per- 
ceiving that the people knew not what it was, a?id thought 
it snowed, and that it was what usually fell at that time of 
the year, he informed them that this dew did not fall from 
heaven after the manner they imagined, but came for their 
preservation and sustenance. So he tasted it, and gave 



* Antiquities, Book III., chap i., 2 6. 



ITS AUTHENTICITY AND CHEDIBILITT. 211 



them some of it, tliat they might be satisfied about what he 
told them. They also imitated their conductor, and were 
pleased with the food." 

Verse 15. — " And when the children of Israel saw if, 
they said one to another, It is manna ; for they wist not 
what it icasy The children of Israel did not call the bread 
from heaven manna, bnt they said when they saw it, p 
(MeN EUA), i.e., What is this ? The Vulgate so puts it, 
" Manlm qiiod significat, qidd est lioc ?^' Kalisch translates 
it, ^' mat is that?" So the Septuagint.* The English 
version, "It is manna," is singularly contradictory, for the 
children of Israel could hardly call it by a distinct name 
if "they "vvist not what it was." Cahen denies that the 
words MeN EUA are an interrogation, and translates them, 
" (J est line nonrritiire."''' 

Verses 16, 17, and 18. — These verses convey the notion 
that the quantity for each person was limited to one omer, 
and that though each person gathered as he could, some 
much and some little, yet when the gatherer measured for 
his family, he who gathered little, had not less than an 
omer for each ; and he who gathered much, no more. 

Verses 20 to 24. — Vv'hile the manna invariably putrified 
if kept till the second day on six days of the vreek, yet, if 
the second day happened to be the seventh day of the week, 
then no putrefaction took place. In verse 23 Moses an- 
nounces for the morrov/ a day of rest, but it is not until 
Terse 26 that the seventh day is spoken of as a periodic 
holiday. Our version, which reads, " To-moiTOW is the rest 
of the holy Sabbath," is incorrect. Kalisch and Cahen 
agree in ti-anslating, "' To-morrow is a day of rest, a holy 
rest." The word "Sabbath" is only the using English 
equivalent for the Hebrew letters, n::ii; ShcBaTh, without 
translating. 

Verse 25.—" To day is a Sabbath." " Many men of little 
faith," says Aben Ezra,t " have been misled by this verse. 
They have deduced from it that the Sabbath ought to 
include the day but not the night preceding. They rely on 
the word " to-morrow " of verse 23. 

* Seo also Josephus, Antiquities, Book III., chap, i., § 6, 
t Cahen, Exode, p. 70. 



212 



Verses 33 and 34. — " And Moses said unto Aaf on, take 

a pot, and put an omer fall of manna therein, and lay it up 
before the Lord, to be kept for your generations. As the 
Lord commanded Moses, so Aaron laid it up before the 
Testimony, to be kept." Cahen and Kalisch both argue 
that this could not have been done as related in the text ; 
they urge that the verse is anticipatory. Kalisch says it is 
self-evident that the command, or, at least, its execution, 
could not have taken place imtil after the construction and 
elevation of the Jewish Tabernacle. Cahen agrees in this. 

Verse 35. — " And the children of Israel did eat manna 
forty years, until they came to a land inhabited ; they did 
eat manna, until tliey came unto the lorders of the land of 
Canaan.^'^ On this passage Scott remarks as follows : — " As 
Moses lived till a great part of the fortieth year was passed, 
when Israel was encamped on the plains of Moab, there 
is no reason to say that this verse was added afterhis decease,''^ 
But, surely, this verse could not have been written till after 
they had ceased eating manna, on the morrow after they 
had eaten of the old corn of the land," Joshua, chap, v., v. 
12. Nor could it have been written until the Israelites 
were toithin the Canaanite boundary ; since nvp, " border," 
which is here used, as in Gen., chap, xxiii. v. 9, and about 
ninety other passages, never means eMra temiinum, but 
always intra terminwn, Kalisch says, " According to 
Joshua, chap, v., w. 10 to 12, the manna ceased after the 
transit of the Israelites over Jordan- — after the death of 
Moses, who (according to Abarbanel) could only have 
made the statement by divine inspiration." Cahen says,t 

Leclerc contends that this verse could not be by Moses, 
because he was dead before the cessation of manna." " The 
manna commenced the fifteenth yiar and finished the 
fifteenth nissau, thus it wanted thirty days to make up 
forty years." 

Chap. xvii. — " And all the congregation of the children 
of Israel journeyed from the wilderness of Sin, after their 
journeys, according to the commandment of the Lord, and 
pitched in Eephidim ; and there teas no water for the people 



* Colenso, part 2, p. 212. j Exode, p. 72, J Exodus, p. 310. 



ITS ATTTHEOTICITY AltD CEEDIBILITT. 213 

to drink." In Numbers, chap, xx., vr. 1 and 2, tte want 
of water is stated to be in tbe desert, at a place called 
Kadesb. In Xnmbers tbe miraculous supply of water is 
after tbe deatb of Miriam, bere it is before ber deatb. 

Verse 7. — And be called tbe name of tbe place Massali 
and Meribab, because of tbe cbiding of tbe cbildren of 
Israel, and because tbey tempted tbe Lord, saying. Is tbe 
Lord among us, or not ?" There is no prerious mention 
of any such question. Theologians may not unfairly be 
asked, bow it was possible for tbe Jews to tempt the 
omnipotent and immutable Deity ? 

Yerse 11. — And it came to pass, when Moses held up 
his hand, that Israel prevailed ; and when he let down his 
hand, Amalek prevailed." Kalisch says,§ " The sense of 
this verse is obscure, and has already much engaged tbe 
ancient interpreters, who attributed to it a symbolical 
meaning." Thus we read in tbe Talmud, " Can really tbe 
hands of Moses cause victory, if they are raised, or defeat, 
if they are let down?" But holy writ teaches us here, 
that, when the Israelites looked up to heaven, and bumbled 
themselves before their heavenly father, tbey were victorious ; 
if not, tbey were defeated. - This is similar to tbe precept 
in Numbers, chap, xxi., v. 8 : Make thee a fiery serpent, 
and set it upon a pole : and it shall come to pass, that 
every one that is bitten, when be looketh upon it, shall 
live." Can a serpent cause or prevent healing ? But if 
the Israelites regarded tbe heaven and were obedient to 
the precepts of their Grod, tbey were healed ; if not, they 
perished. This interpretation, although it approaches the 
spirit of our narrative, is yet too general to apply to this 
event. Por during the combat, piety or impiety were out 
of tbe question ; and further, tbe text does not state that 
the Israelites looked sometimes up to the hand of Moses 
and sometimes not ; but that Moses now raised and now 
lowered it. Can any reasonable man believe that if 
Napoleon had stood on an eminence near the scene at 
"Waterloo, and had held up his bands, such conduct would 
have influenced the success of either party, other than as 
the conduct of a leader who might thus cheer or dishearten 
his troops ? Why should a man believe of Moses that to 



214 



EXODUS : 



wliicli he would refuse credence in tlie present day, if 

related of some modern general ? The believer may fairly 
wonder why, if God was really on the side of the Israelites, 
he allowed his aid to depend upon whether Moses could hold 
up his hand ? 

Verse 14. — " And the Lord said unto Moses, Write this 
for a memorial in a book." Aben Ezra regards this verse 
as written in the fortieth year of the wanderings, and urges 
that the book it refers to is now lost. The writings, not 
now discoverable, but referred to in the Bible, are numerous, 
including — ^1, The book of the wars of the Lord ; 2, The 
book of Jasher ; 3, The book of the chronicles of the kings 
of Israel ; 4, The books of Solomon ; 5, The book, or story, 
or vision of Iddo ; 6, The book of ISTathan ; 7, The book of 
Grad. There are various other writings mentioned in the 
Old Testament, but of which we know nothing but the 
names.* 

Verse 16. — " Because the Lord hath sworn tliat the Lord 
iDill have war with Amalek from generation to generation." 
" "VVhy was Amalek to be so punished ? Grod the Creator 
must have created both Amalekites and Israelites (it must 
have been according to his special decrees that the former 
fought with the Hebrew race), yet the Bible Deity favours the 
latter and declares war against the former from generation 
to generation. What a strange idea — strife between an 
Omnipotent and Infinite Grod and his weak and puny 
creatures. By the expression ' the Lord hath sworn that 
the Lord will have war with Amalek from generation to 
generation,' true believers may learn that Grod predeter- 
mined to make war upon unborn generations of Amalekites, 
whom he was yet to create for the purpose of exterminating.'* 
Kalisch and Cahen translate the verse, " Because the hand 
was against the throne of Grod ; therefore the Lord will 
have war with Amalek from generation to generation." 

Verse 15. — And Moses built an altar, and called the 
name of it Jehovah-nissi :" The words here written, 
" Jehovah-nissi," are, in the Douay, " The Lord is my exalt- 



* See Gahen, Exode, p. 74. Kalisch, Exodus, p. 312. Giles's 
Hebrew Eecords, p. 40. 



ITS AUTHENTICtTY AND CEEDIBILITT. 



215 



ation." The Septiiagint, G-ocl my refuge." Mendelssolin 
and Kaliscli, God is my banner." Calien, " The Eternal, 
my standard." 

Verse 16. — " For he said. Because the Lord hath sworn 
tliat the Lord iciJl liave war with Amalek from genera- 
tion to generation." Kalisch and Cahen (who says that 
the passage is diScult) agree to substitute for the words, 
"Because the Lord hath sworn," the phrase " Because the 
hand was (or is) against the throne of Grod." The Douay 
has, " Because the hand of the throne of the Lord." The 
Septuagint reads, Because the Lord hath fought Amalek 
with a hidden hand." 

Chap, xyiii. — Cahen says,* " The journey of the father- 
in-law of Moses giv^es rise to many difficulties. The Sepher 
Hamiv'har says that this journey did not take place until 
the second year of the going out of Egypt. These difficul- 
ties are also increased from Moses having only one father- 
in-law, who made one journey only, while we find seven 
names for the father-in-law — viz., 1, JeTheE; 2, r,n'', 
IThEU ; 3, nnin, HUB^B ; 4, ^nn, H^^B^E ; 5, Oem ; 
6, bmi, EQUAL ; 7, K^^toi^, PhUTIAL. [Whence Cahen 
gets this seventh name is not clear, unless he goes outside 
the Bible and gets it from the Talmud.] It is not im- 
possible that these seven names apply to the same man, 
but it is very improbable. To our knowledge, Moses has 
taken two wives, one Midianite and one Ethiopian (Exodus, 
chap, ii., V. 21). He might have married others, and had 
many fathers-in-lavf." Som.e ancient interpreters, as 
Eben Ezra (in v. 13) and Eashbam, whom several modern 
critics, as Eanke (Untersuchungen, i., p. 83), have followed, 
are of opinion, that the narration concerning Jethro, which 
is here inserted, does not stand in its proper place, and 
that the arrival of Jethro took place only in the second 
year after the legislation, or after the erection of the 
Tabernacle. As reasons, Eben Ezra mentions : 1, 
that according to v. 12, " a burnt- offering and eucharistic 
sacrifices t" were killed, whilst nothing has been related 
about the building of a new altar; 2, the 3» words in 
V. 20, ^* And thou shalt illustrate to them the ordinances 



* Exode, p. ?5. 



t Kaliscli, Exodus, p. 314, 



216 



EXODTTS : 



7 i 

I..' 
f 



and laws," point to the time after the legislation ; 8, 
that Moses encamps, according to v. 5, by "the moun- 
tain of Grod;" 4, that according to Numbers, chap, x., 
V. 30, Jethro returned to his home (v. 27), only when 
the Israelites departed from Horeb ; and 5, that the new 
arrangement of Jethro, explained in our chapter, took place 
not earlier than in the time of that departure. Kalisch 
endeavours to explain away these points, but with very 
slight success. 

Verses 1 to 6. — Some part of the previous history is 
clearly deficient. "We have no account of Moses sending 
his wife back ; on the contrary, in chap, iv., v. 20, we are 
told that he took both her and his two sons into Egypt. 
Cahen quotes from the Mechilta, an ancient and mystical 
commentary upon the Pentateuch, that when Aaron met 
Moses (c. iv., vv. 27 and 28) Aaron asked, " To whom do 
those belong ?" Moses answered : " This is my wife, whom 
I have taken in Midian ; those are my sons." " "Where are 
you taking them?" "To Egypt." ""We suffer already 
for those who dwell there, and yet you augment the 
number." Moses then said to his wife, " Go to the house 
of thy father.'' " She took her iniants and went."^ 

Verse 9. — " And Jethro rejoiced." The Septuagint, " And 
Jethro was seized with astonishment." 

Verse 11. — " Eor in the thing wherein they dealt proudly 
lie was above them." Kalisch translates this, " yea, by the 
very thing, that they acted wickedly against them." The 
Douay, " because they dealt proudly against him." The 
Breeches Bible, " for as they dealt proudly with them, so 
are they recompensed." Cahen, literally, " for by the thing 
that they have acted with pride upon them." The passage 
is obscure, and seems as if part of the verse were missing. 

Verse 21. — " Moreover thou shalt provide out of all the 
people able men, such as fear God, men of truth, hating 
covetousness ; and place sicch over them, to he rulers of 
thousands, and rulers of hundreds, rulers of fifties, and 
rulers of tens." f " Not quite unfounded is the astonish- 
ment of Aben Ezra, that Moses should have been able to 
find among the degenerated Israelites, who showed them- 

* Exode, p. 76. " f Kalisch, Exodus, p. S21, 



ITS AUTHENTICITY AND CEEDIBILITr. 217 

•elves now, and almost always during the wanderings ih. 
the desert, pusillanimous and refractory, 78,600 men of so 
distinguished and exalted qualities." The way in which 
Moses speaks of the J ews would hardly lead us to expect a 
result so favourable. J osephus says there were to be judges 
over 10,000, then over 1,000, then 500, then 100, then 50, 
then 30, then 20, then 10.* This would make the number 
of judges much larger than 78,600, for reckoning only by 
the 600,000 fighting men, it would be — 



for the 


10,000 — 


60 


for the 


1,000 — 


600 


for the 


500 — 


1,200 


for the 


100 — 


6,000 


for the 


50 — 


12,000 


for the 


30 — 


20,000 


for the 


20 — 


80,000 


for the 


10 — 


60,000 


making i 


a total of 


129,860 



Cahen observes,t It is evident that Jethro only in- 
dicated the hierarchical division of judicial power, 
necessary to facilitate the business of government. It 
is undoubtedly singular, that a man elevated midst the 
sciences of Egypt, that one of the greatest legislators of 
antiquity should have need of counsel for a matter which 
appears to us so simple." 

Verse 25 is entirely wanting in the Samaritan, which, 
however, here adds ten verses not given in the Hebrew. 

Chap. xix. v. 1. — " In the third month, when the children 
of Israel were gone forth out of the land of Egypt, the 
same day came they into the vdlderness of Sinai." It would 
be difficult from this verse to determine upon which day of 
the third month it was that the Israelites came into the 
wilderness. Some of the ancient rabbis fix it the first, some 
the third, and others the fifteenth ; none have any evidence 
to guide them. The modern believer who knows that his 
ealvation depends on his faith, and who cannot, therefore, 
rest unconcerned as to the particular day, will fix* on the 

* Antiquities, Book III., chap. iy. t Exode, p. 79. ^ 



218 



EXODUS : 



one he thinks most likely. There is no more evidence in 
faYour of one than of another. 

Verse 9. — " Believe in thee for ever." If God intended 
that the effect produced on the Israelites by hearing his 
voice from ont of the thick cloud be that of ever-continuing 
faith, then the intentions of Deity M^ere woefully disap- 
pointed ; the faith of the Jews in the Grod who rescued 
them from Egypt did not endure even during the temporary 
absence of their leader, Moses, on the mountain. 

Verses 12 and 13. — " And thou shalt set bounds unto 
the people round about, saying, Take heed to yourselves, 
that ye go not up into the mount, or touch the border of 
it ; whosoever toucheth the mount shall be surely put to 
death. There shall not an hand touch it, but he shall 
surely be stoned, or shot through ; whether it be beast or 
man, it shall not live ; ivTien tlie trimpet soiindetli long, they 
shall come to the mounts The words italicised seem in 
direct contradiction to the whole of the remainder of the 
injunction (see also verses 21, 23, and 24). The Septuagint 
says that the people might go up into the mountain vrhen 
the voice and the trumpets were no longer heard and the 
cloud no longer seen. 

Verse 18. — " And the whole mount quaked greatly." 
The Septuagint reads, all the people were stupified." The 
Douay reads, " and all the mount was terrible." 

Verse 22. — And let the priests also, which come near 
to the Lord, sanctify themselves, lest the Lord break forth 
upon them." Kalisch says, " It is difficult to comprehend 
the introduction of the priests in this verse, as it is not 
until chap, xxviii. v. 1, that the sons of Aaron are appointed 
to priestly functions." Instead of brea.k forth upon 
them," Cahen has, fairs une destruction iJa^nni eux'' 

If this account of the meeting between Moses and Grod 
had been given in the book of Mormon, in the Koran, or 
in the sacred books of any pagan people, some Christian 
critic w^ould have exclaimed, " Why, this is clearly an im- 
posture ! Most certainly the man who led the people, and 
who wished to pretend that he was to have an interview 
with God, took precautions to keep the people at a suffi- 
cient distance to prevent detection of his schemes; the 



ITS AUTHENTICITY ANB CBEDIBILITY. 



219 



trumpet sounding, tlie darkness, the thunder and lightning, 
are so many scenic and pyrotechnic appliances to impress 
his ignorant and credulous followers, and to give effect to 
the delusion. Perhaps the mount was a volcanic one, in 
which case the addition of the trumpet soundings completed 
the scene ; and, in any case, the secrecy observed as to all 
the transactions on the mount protected Moses from 
exposure. How careful are the directions given to prevent 
any inquisitive straggler from getting sufficiently near to 
make a fatal discovery ! Can any reasonable man believe 
that an infinite God blew a trumpet, or caused a trumpet 
to be blown, to announce his coming, or that he descended 
upon Sinai surrounded by fire and smoke? In many 
fabulous relations we find similar recitals, but it is absurd 
to suppose that this refers to an Almighty and Infinite 
Deity. We are told in verse 20, * The Lord came down 
upon Mount Sinai on the top of the mount, and the Lord 
caUed Moses up to the top of the mount, and Moses went 
up.' Can you require stronger evidence of the character 
of your book ? Omnipresent and Infinite Deity pictured 
as standing on the top of a mountain, and calling to Moses, 
who was down below, to come up to him ! !" Cahen observes 
that to impress an ignorant people like the Israelites with 
a notion of omnipotence, the fear of the thunder, the light- 
ning, and the tempest, was necessary. They surely ought 
to have been already enough impressed by the Egyptian 
plagues and the Eed Sea miracle. 

The records and traditions of most peoples show that in 
early times many of their national leaders increased their 
influence over the populace by pretended communications 
with the Gods.^ Jewish fable differs only from Hindoo, 
Greek, or Egyptian myth by the coarseness of its sur- 
roundings. The general outlines are nearly everyw^here 
the same, although the minor details may and do differ. 
Nicolasf says : — " It is a remark often made, but which 
cannot be too much repeated, that the anthropomorphisms 
which are so frequent in the Book of Genesis are not found 
in the -'other Books of the Pentateuch. " Whilst Elohim 

^ KaUscli, Exodus, p. 331. KeigMey's Mythology, p. 404, &c. 
t Etudes stcr la Bible, p. 130. 



220 



EXODUS : 



came in person, and under a human form, to treat with 
Abraham, and, again, later, to announce the birth of Isaac, 
Jehovah, invisible to the eyes of Moses, speaks to him from 
the midst of a burning bush, or out of the thick cloud. He 
never manifests himself under a tangible form ; no man can 
see the face of the Eternal even in the tabernacle where he 
dwells on the mercy seat between the two cherubims ; he 
remains invisible. When Moses enters the holy place to 
consult Jehovah, a voice answers him, but no figure appears 
to his eyes." [Exodus, chap. xxiv. w. 10 and 11, is rather 
in opposition to this view of Nicolas.] 

After relating the story of the tempest and thunder and 
lightning, when God appeared at Sinai, Elavius Josephus 
adds — " Now, as to these matters, every one of my readers 
may think as he pleases, but I am under the necessity of 
relating this history as it is described in the sacred books."* 
He then adds a very long speech of Moses, who begins by 
telling the Jews that God has received him graciously ; is 
now in the camp, and has made some suggestions for their 
domestic and political government. This speech does not 
exist in our " sacred books." 

Chap. XX. — The second verse of this chapter begins in the 
first person, "I am the Lord," and contiuues in the first 
person to verse 6, where it merges into the third person. 
The Talmudists, therefore, say that the Israelites did not 
themselves hear God's voice after the sixth verse. f The 
Decalogue given in the first thirteen verses of this chapter 
is repeated in the fifth chapter of Deuteronomy, but with 
considerable variations. Aben Ezra counted thirteen 
differences either in the words or ideas, some trivial and 
some important, and sought to explain them away. 

Verse 3. — " Thou shalt have no other Gods (Q'Til'^ 
ALEIM) before me." Kalisch has "beside me." Cahen, 
following literally the Hebrew, "before my face." The 
Douay, " Thou shalt not have strange Gods before me." 
This prohibition of other Gods (Elohim) is in terms which, 
coupled with the preceding verse and two following verses, 
make^this a command from the Jewish national Deity, who 

* Antiquities, Book III, ghap. Y., f ^. , . . 

t Cahen, Exode, p, 87* , 



ITS AUTHEIsTICITY AKD CEEDIBILITT. 221 



is jealous of the influence which miglit possibly be exercised 
bj the Elohim of neighbouring peoples ; it is not a clear 
declaration that only one Grod exists, but an injunction to 
worship only the Jehovah Elohim. The other Elohim 
were by no means few. The Hebrew Scriptures abound 
with names of various heathen deities, of which a list is 
given in the G-lossary to Etheridge's work on the Targums, 
and which vrill be dealt with in this commentary in the 
order in which the names occur. 

Verse 4. — " Thou shalt not make unto thee any graven 
image, or any likeness of any thing that is in heaven above, 
or that is in the earth beneath, or that is in the water under 
the earth." The Septuagint has, eidolon, " idol." Kalisch"^ 
admits, and Cahen declares, that the prohibition in this 
verse has exercised a retarding influence upon the progress 
and development of the plastic arts amongst the Hebrews, 
but he denies that the plastic arts in general are forbidden 
by the text, and considers that if it were so, the prohibition 
would be barbarous and irrational. This commandment is 
contradicted by the injunction in Exodus, chap. xxv. vv. 18 
to 20, for the manufacture of the cherubims ;" and if it be 
replied that cherubims are not things that are in heaven 
above, earth beneath, or water under the earth, then vv, 
33 and 3-i, for the images of almonds and almond flowers, 
remains to be explained away. In the serpent of brass, 
Numbers, chap. xxi. v. 8, the sculptured oxen of Solomon's 
temple, and in other texts, this command is further con- 
tradicted. 

Yerse 5. — "I the Lord thy Grod am a jealous God, 
visiting the iniquity of the fathers upon the children unto 
the third and fourth generation of them that hate me." 
Kalisch has, "a zealous Grod,"t but his translation is not 
justified by the context, which (as Cahen observes) explains 
that G-od is jealous of any boT^ing down of service rendered 
to idols or other Gods. Many commentators have been 
shocked by the vindictive character attributed to God in 
this verse, forgetting that it precisely accords with his dis- 
position as manifested in Exodus, chap. xvii. yy. 14 to 16, 

* Exodus, p. 345. 

t See Parkhust on the root «ip, Lexicon, p. 635. 



222 



"EXODUS : 



and in many otlier parts of the Bible. Kalisch says* — " It 
appears to be in opposition to the divine love and justice, 
tbat the children should innocently suffer for the crimes of 
their fathers ; and this principle, if really contained in our 
M^ords, would be a great defect in the system of the Mosaic 
ethics. But already the directly opposite declarations in 
other passages of the Old Testament ought to warn us to 
be circumspect in the exposition of our text. In Deut., 
chap. xxiv. v. 16, we read literally : — " The fathers shall not 
be put to death for the children, neither shall the children 
be put to death for the fathers : every man shall be put to 
death for his own sin and with a verbal reminiscence from 
this passage we read in 2 Kings, chap. xiv. vv. 5 and 6 : — 
" And it came to pass as soon as the kingdom was confirmed 
in his hand [of Amaziah], that he slew his servants, who 
had slain the ting, his father. But the children of the 
murderers he slew not : according to that which is written 
in the book of the law of Moses, wherein the Lord com- 
manded, saying, The fathers shall not be put to death for 
the children.'* Still more solemnly rises Ezekiel against 
that preposterous maxim, and devotes to this subject an 
elaborate polemical discussion in the eighteenth chapter of 
his prophecies ; and the result is, in vv. 20 to 24, thus con- 
densed : — " The soul that sinneth, it shall die. The son 
shall not bear the iniquity of the father, nor shall the father 
bear the iniquity of the son ; the righteousness of the 
righteous shall be upon him, and the wickedness of the 
wicked shall be upon him." 

Chap. XX. v. 7. — " Thou shalt not take the name of the 
Lord thy God in vain ; for the Lord will not hold him 
guiltless that taketh his name in vain." Instead of "in 
vain," Kalisch has "for falsehood," and Cahen says that 
the words " in vain" here apply to everything which is not 
true in each instance. Josex^hus gives this, " that we must 
not swear by G-od in a false manner." So farf back as the 
timeofHesiod (between 700 and 800 B.C.), Eris, or Con- 
tention, was called the god of oaths, and Polybius states 
that among the ancients the use of judicial oaths was rare, 
but as perfidy gr ew, oaths increased. The Egyptians con- 



* Exodus, p. 348. 



t Kalisch, Exodus, p. 354. 



ITS AUTHENTICITY A^Tf CEEDIBILITT, 



223 



sidered perjury as tlie blackest crime, wHch was invariablv 
punished with death, since it impned both a contempt for 
the gods and a violation of that faith which is the only tie 
and guarantee for the welfare of society. The Persians 
refused to swear, but gave their hand as a plight of troth. 
The Scythians told Alexander the G-reat — " We swear only 
by keeping our word." Hercules," says Plutarch, " was 
so devout that he never took an oath." Clinias held 
adjuration in perfect abhorrence, and the very Greek word 
" Epiorkos," signifying perjury, means literally the frequent 
habit of oath taking. This reluctance to swear at all, even 
just and judicial oaths, prevailed among the Jews also ; the 
Talmud re<;ommends a simple " Yes, yes," or " Xo, no,'* 
instead of every oath (Sheb., 36, «) ; and the Xew Testa- 
ment expresses this idea with peculiar emphasis : " Swear 
not at all — neither by the heaven, for it is G-od's throne^ 
nor by the earth, for it is His footstool, but let your com- 
munication be, Tea, yea, and Xay, nay : for whatsoever is 
more than these cometh of evil" Qlatt., v. 34 — 37 ; James, 
V. 12 ; with which injunctions Matt., xxvi. 63, 64, does not 
stand in contradiction) ; and in accordance herewith oaths 
Vv'ere denounced by Justin, Irenaeus, Basil, Chrysostom, and 
Augustine. 

How deep)ly this antipathy to swearing was rooted in tha 
minds of the Orientals is shown by the exactly similar pro- 
verb of the Arabs : " Xever swear, but let thy words be^ 
Yes or So." And, indeed, oath-taking seems to imply, in 
its principle and origin, that other simple assertions are 
less sacred or binding, and thus indirectly to exercise an 
injurious influence upon the moral and religious notions of 
the people." 

In his " Eationale of Evidence," and afterwards in a 
special essay entitled, Swear not at all," to which 
papers* we are indebted for the following observations, 
Jeremy Bentham most elaborately and exhaustively ex- 
amines the oath question, so far a-s it relates to England : — 

"An oath is a 'ceremony composed of^words and 
gestures,' in which the Deity is invoked as the sanction of 

* Also Dumont's Traite des Preuves Judiciares, cliapitre xii. Du 
Serruent considere comme surete. 



22* 



EXODtrs : 



truth, or h engaged by the swearer to punish hiin should 
he not perform what he has thus promised. Though oaths 
have been distinguished into promissory and assertory, or 
into TOWS and testimonial oaths, there is no essential differ- 
ence between them. In both cases the same religious 
sanction is called in to guarantee the truth ; and in the 
testimonial oath, as in the tow, there is an undertaking or 
a promise, a promise to say that which is true under an 
engagement or obligation to the Deity to undergo punish- 
ment for the breach of that promise. 

" If there is a natural inducement to tell the truth, inde- 
pendent of that popular sanction which is maintained by 
the opposed pain or punishment, consisting in disapproba- 
tion or shame ; independent, also, of such incouTeniences or 
pains expected as form the religious sanction ; and inde- 
pendent, further, of those pains which form the political 
one, it must be sought in some pain or incouTenience which 
naturally and necessarily attends the use of falsehood, and 
which, were it sufficiently powerful to act against all the 
opposed inducements, would be the sufficient guarantee of 
truth. 

" "Where there is no opposing motive of superior power, 
truth is natural to man, simply because falsehood requires 
an effort of thought and contriTance, and is, therefore, 
painful. Truth is ready, because it is knoT\Ti ; falsehood is 
not hnown, and therefore it must be iuTonted. Invention 
is a labour ; and our natural Ioto of ease, therefore, deter- 
mines us to speak the truth. And the strength of this 
inducement, or that of the motiTO of indolence, is increased 
by the proTcrbial and ncTer-forgotten consciousness that 
the first iuTention may require many more, and thus carry 
with it a long train of future labour. 

" If OTidence is commonly and in common cases true, it is 
only because it is the easiest proceeding ; the truth here, 
it is plain, being estimated by the perception and belief of 
the narrator ; and when it is not true, or when it is false, 
in the same sense, it is because of the presence of s.ome 
opposing motiTe of greater power. 

''If anyone shall object to the assumed force of this 
sanction here considered as the love of ease, or as a desir© 



ITS ATTTHE^TTICITT Ay3 CEEDIEILITT. 225 



to avoid tlie pains of laboTir or trouble, lie has not considered 
the wide influence of this principle over the whole of onr 
conduct, an inflnence to which we mainly owe the force of 
all our habits, since those are modes of conduct determined 
b J their facility, as, reyersely, to change them demands a 
powerful effort. 

" The power or force of the natural sanction is, however, 
a very different question from that of its existence in any 
particular case. The very same cause which renders truth 
easier than falsehood tends also to impede the discovery of 
the whole truth. Here exertion becomes necessary, because 
of the imperfection of memory ; and thus, although the 
narrator may relate what he remembers without much 
effort, he will not trouble himself to seek in his recollection 
that which would perhaps give him more pain than inven- 
tion or falsehood. It is then that interrogation or cross-ex- 
amination becomes a remedy auxiliary to the natural sanction. 

" But if this inconvenience is thus corrigible, there is one 
of greater weight, for which a more powerful corrective is 
wanted. "Whatever may be the force of the love of ease as 
a motive to truth, it is too feeble to contend against almost 
any interest in favour of what is not truth, or any interest 
to which falsehood would be^ favourable. Let us now, 
therefore, inquire into the nature and power of the popular 
sanction, or of that which consists in the public opinion in 
favour of truth and in disfavour of falsehood. 

" Our welfare or happiness, it is plain, depends materially 
on our own actions or conduct, and our actions must be 
regulated by our knowledge. But that knowledge cannot 
all consist in personal experience ; it must be founded on 
the experience of others in great part, and thus far it is 
dependent on testimony, or is regulated by the veracity or 
otherwise of those around us. It is, therefore, true or 
false, knowledge or ignorance, in proportion as society, or 
those persons on whom we depend, are veracious or falsifiers. 
Thus does it follow, that our happiness depends on our 
knowledge far more, indeed, than is generally imagined by 
mankind ; but thus also must it be evident, that if ignorance 

injurious, the false must be still more pernicious to us, 
fece, if the one may prevent us from acting right, the 



226 



EXODUS : 



otier will be the direct cause of our acting wrong. Thus 
does truth become a necessity of society, and* hence public 
(Opinion has been invariably led to stigmatise the want of it 
its a disgrace or crime. 

" The religious sanction is the one of those safeguards 
for truth which are independent of the form or ceremony 
of an oath, the purpose of which, however, is an attempt to 
render that sanction more operative or efficient. The 
Teligious sanction ought to be complete ; it ought to be 
possessed of entire efficacy as it stands — a naked law. It 
is a positive law, declared from the mount amid thunderings 
.and lightnings ; it is a law declared again by Jesus, repeated 
•by his Apostles. "Whatever power religion possesses over 
man and his conduct as to its other laws, that power must 
it possess over him as to tliis one ; and if it possesses none 
.as to truth, how shall we believe that it possesses any over 
^ny portion of our conduct ? And by whatever else 
religion enforces its lavv^s, by that does it enforce the 
practice of truth ; by the promise of future rewards and the 
denunciation of future pimishment. Yet it is of no avail ; 
or rather the law known to all, the sanction known to all, 
are acknowledged to be of no avail, nevertheless we seek 
to jnake them available by the addition of a ceremony. 

We shall inquire how that succeeds by-and-bye. But 
it is w^orth our Avhile to see, in the meantime, w^hat has been 
the practice, not merely of Christians, but of the establish- 
iments for the inculcation and support of Christianity — of 
the Church itself. 

"That Church, the Catholic and the parent Church, 
which undertook to teach the people to speak truth — to 
speak nothing but the truth, at all events — and never to 
speak falsehood, systematically supported what is called 
the interests of religion, religion itself, the law of truth, by 
means of falsehood. In no one instance has the religious 
sanction placed the slightest obstacle in the way of false- 
hood when those interests of the Church called the interests 
of religion were to receive advantages, real or fictitious or 
apparent, from falsehood. Thus it is still in that Church ; 
this is not the history of Leo, but the history of yesterday, 
to-4ay, to-morrow, as long as those interests shall thus be 



ITS AUTHENTICITY AND CBEBIBlLITT. 



227 



Tiiisnamed. Thus was the door of exceptions opened, and 
^lius for centuries is the history of the Church the history 
of falsehood — lies — for no other term but that vulgar one 
is available. Miracles, relies, srdnts, apparitions, decretals, 
fictitious gospels, acts of councils, revelations, all false ; all, 
and more ; a regular, arranged, determined system of false- 
hood, supported by the fa.Lse testimonies and unblushing 
assertions of the highest characters in the series of that 
Church. 

" And yet that Church sought to bind to truth by the 
religious sanction, adding to it a ceremony, those to whom 
it gave a daily example of falsehood in its ov\'n practice, 
under the very colour of religion and its interests. Truth 
was the law of Moses and of the Grospel, and yet Popes 
could relieve subjects from their oaths to kings, and the 
Church could decree that faith was not to be kept with 
I «etics ; could command falsehood to others as law, when 
fe' w^as the expounder and protector of that law which com- 
manded truth from the mouth of Christ himself, whose 
vicegerent it pretended to be on earth. And this was the 
Church which established the doctrine of mental reserva- 
tion and equivocation, which taught its most favoured 
friends and supporters to lie to G-od as to man ; taught 
them not only to break his positive law, but to ridicule and 
insult him in the very act and mode. Here at least is a 
system under vAich we may surely ask, if anywiiere, of 
what avail is an oath ? Of what avail it is anywhere, as 
{Tiiding strength to the religious sanction, w^e shall proceed 

inquire. 

" We began with examining by definition w^hat an oath 
but we chose to limit ourselves at first to its obvious, 
<f<eremonial, and political character. We must nov*" ask 
what particular relation the Deity bears to the party 
swearing ? as a larger part of the question rests on this' 
than the thoughtless public are aware of. 

" By the act of an oath man engages himself to submit to. 
the punishment which the Deity has assigned to the breakers 
of his law — viz., no less than eternal torments ; and by the 
same act he therefore engages, or endeavours to engage,, 
the Deity to inflict that punishment should he fail in per- 
forming his portion of the contract. 



228 



ExoDrs : 



" There are, therefore, two contracting parties, the Deity 

and the swearer ; or, at least, there is an attempt to make 
such a contract. "What, then, is the oath ? No less than 
to make * man the legislator and judge, Grod the sheriff and 
executioner ; man the despot, Grod his slave.' 

" If, therefore, in any case the Deity refuses to obey the 
order attempted to be imposed on him, or to agree to the 
contract, the effect of the oath is nothing, because the con- 
tract is void. The oath is a complete lien on the * Almighty 
executioner' if in all cases he enforces the punishment, and 
it is thus perfectly eflScacious ; but if we adopt the term 
' probable' only, then we do no less than assert that he is a 
* negligent servant,' obeying the orders received from us 
sometimes", but at others disobeying them. And what can 
we know on this subject? That he engages to punish 
breaches of truth simply ? "We shall see presently to what 
besides this we attempt to bind the Almighty. 

" The absurdity of all this, to give it no harsher name, 
ought to be apparent ; and if it be admitted, then is the 
ceremony divested of its force, and of the influence which is 
attached to it. It does nothing unless it can enforce the 
Most High as a contracting party ; and to this end, then, 
at least, of future penalties, and consequently of present 
force, it is nugatory. 

"We need scarcely stop here to say that by human laws 
the infraction of an oath is perjury, a crime punishable by 
those laws ; and therefore it follows that one or the other 
punishment must be superfluous or undue ; while, if human 
penalties be adequate, no other can be necessary, whereas 
if inadequate, the justice of the Deity," as Mr. Bentham 
remarks, " cannot find adequate exercise till man gives him 
leave, and is thus kept in a state of dependence on human 
folly or improbity. 

" But there is a far higher species of absurdity attached to 
an oath in the case where two swearers engage themselves 
to the production of incompatible or opposite effects. In 
this case the Deity is presumed to be compelled, or at least 
engaged, to punish two opposed modes of conduct — if 
the oaths mean anything — and is thus consequently engaged 
to produce incompatibilities. Eor example, * James' swears 



ITS AUTHENTICITY A^^D CREDIBIEITY. 



229 



by his coronation oath to support the Catholic religion, 
while ' Greorge' swears to maintain the Protestant. "What, 
then, is the work cut out for the Almighty? To combat 
each religion, and at the same time and place to defend it, 
to combat it with one hand and defend it with the other. 

" It is admitted that the preceding objections might be 
overlooked if the practical consequences of an oath pre- 
sented a balance of utility ; but it will shortly be proved 
that as far as relates to good consequences, it is an ineffi- 
cient invention, and that, on the other hand, it often is, 
or may be, a direct and positive source of evil. 

" It would be evil, for example, in the case of a daspot 
or a tyrant, who should make use of the force of an oath 
of allegiance for purposes of oppression ; while we have 
here also an example of that absurdity which would thus 
engage the Deity to abet vice and i)rotect crime. The oath 
of allegiance, it is plain, if it be anything, places the 
Supreme Being in alliance with the tyrant or under his 
orders, because, engaging Him to punish those who do 
not keep their promise to obey the despot, they require 
him to sanction whatever crime towards the people thus 
engaged may seem fitting or convenient to this governing 
j)ower. 

" Here is another cause of evil, and a common one in- 
Tolving the same kind of absurdity. It is common for 
banditti to exact oaths from their prisoners to submit to 
various evils in their, the exactors' favour ; such as secrecy, 
ransom, and so on, as is practised in Italy and Greece 
every day. Mark here the absurdity again. It is assumed 
that the Almighty becomes leagued vrith thieves and 
robbers ; the most atrocious criminals are empowered to 
command the Supreme Being, and to make Him the abettor 
and protector of crime, and to direct His vengeance against 
those who refuse to submit to their orders in breach of 
His own laws. Common sense is sufficient to show the 
more than foUy of obedience to an oath in such a case ; 
and yet is it certain that nothing hfis been more disputed 
than the force of this kind of obligation, while timorous 
or conscientious persons daily sub mit themselves to it, in 
maiufest breach of social order as- well as pfreasoxx; ia 



230 



EXODTJS : 



manifest breach even of the Divine laws, as abettors of 
crime. But we will suppose, with the opposite party, that 
this obligation is not binding. The oath, then, is void. 
That is, it does not, in this particular case, bind the 
Almighty whom it undertook to bind. Eut this is the 
determination of the casuist ; it is an oath or not an oath, 
as any one pleases to consider it, and it is evident that it 
wdll be judged by each according to liis own views, and in 
numerous cases according to his own views, and in nume- 
rous cases according to his convenience, profit, or what not. 
The oath of Jephtha, the oath of Herod, these were both 
wicked oaths ; they engaged the Supreme Being in murder ; 
they were void oaths, therefore ; yet were they kept and 
for evil. The oath of Greorge ought to have been similarly 
a void oath ; in the mind of one set of casuists, it must 
have been such ; for what was the result to the adherents 
of James ? It is an evil consequence, however, in which 
all persons, all governments, all religious institutions are 
concerned, that the usage of oaths is hostile to simple 
veracity or to truth. Two species of falsehood are thu| 
established — simple mendacity and perjurious mendacity ^ 
while as censure or punishment is reserved for the latter 
exclusively, the former ceases to be a crime, and even loses 
a portion of its disgrace. There are thus instituted two 
degrees in one crime, and the smaller crime is practised 
without remorse as with impunity. Let us only suppose 
oaths abolished in juridical cases, and we should imme- 
diately see that not only would the general immorality of 
simple mendacity be immediately felt, but that the popular 
sanction would also immediately reappear in its full force. 
Thus also, and in the very same manner, do oaths tend to 
destroy the power of the more purely religious sanction 
of that yerj sanction which they have been invented to 
enforce. The law of truth, laid down in the Old and New 
Testament, becomes less availing because the very cere- 
mony amounts to a declaration that its force is not much 
v>^orthy of being regarded, or virtually, that it is undeserv- 
ing of regard, or is powerless. It is a law which the cere- 
mony declares to be a law not binding, a law that must be 
rendered binding by a human contrivance, before it can 



ITS ATTTHEKTIOITY AST) CREDIBILITY. 231 



deserve regard or be of avail. Eeligion is made to be at 
war with religion : man declares solemnly that the posi- 
tive precept of the la^ is not a law, that the positive and 
explicit command of Christ does not command obedience. 
He attempts to abrogate the force of the law which he 
professes to support, the law of religion by religion. 

But, in this contrivance, man is not the mere inventor 
of a supererogation, the fabrication of a chain to bind, 
still faster, that chain by which religion is meant to hold 
man fast in the bonds of virtue and morality, the contriver 
of a chain, mischievously weakening or destroying the 
strength of that one by which the Deity had originally 
designed to bind him down to his duties, while he substitutes 
a worse one in its place. He declares, indeed, that he comes 
to aid the laws of the Supreme Being. But even thus, what is 
the amount of this declaration ? That the Supreme did not 
know best how to effect his own purposes. That he re- 
quires man to teach him his duty, his road to his own ends. 
That Christ, his Christ, was so ignorant of the best means 
of securing the law of truth, as to require the counsel and 
aid of man ; the Creator of the creature. Is this indeed 
so ? and is this all ? No. Man is not here a mere super- 
erogator, an unbidden counsellor, a Pope dictating laws to 
the Supreme. He is an infractor of a positive law ; he comes 
to amend thelaw,andhe commences by breaking the law. He 
is not simply attempting to enforce the law by his unbidden 
counsel, but he is abolishing by his owa act a positive law, 
plainly pronounced as tongue could speak. * Swear not atall.' 
Not at all. Can any intention be more clearly expressed ? 
Could it have been more clearly expressed than by the 
preface to this injunction, this absolute, uncompromising 
law? Can it be doubted that this command refers to 
formal swearing to oaths, not to profane and expletive 
swearing ? ' Ye have heard that it hath been said by them 
of old time. Thou shalt not forswear thyself, but shalt 
perform unto the Lord thine oaths ; but I, * I ' say unto 
you, swear not at all.' 

" If we were to judge by the great and peculiar use mada 
of oaths, we should conclude that they were effectual 
securities for truth; but when we examine the practice 



232 



EXODUS : 



and the results, we are compelled to adopt a conclusion 
directly the reverse. Historically viewed, the inquiry 
would be a curious one ; but it is too spacious by far for 
our limits. The endless oaths of our Saxon or early 
ancestors' engagements before God, through saints and 
relics, made at every minute, to be broken at every hour, 
would alone tempt us to be content with our common and 
apparently much feebler securities. The force of an oath is 
compounded of three sanctions ; of that of religion under 
the adjuration, of that punishment which the mimicipal 
law allots to the infraction, and of public opinion, or of the 
infamy attached to falsehood or perjury. Take away the 
two latter, and the former is nothing. Look at the jury- 
man's oath. It is as solemn as ' kiss the book, give me a 
shilling ' can make it ; though the shilling, which is the 
most valuable part of the oath in some cases, is excused in 
this one. Perjurious unanimity is even secured by tor- 
ture, the oath is broken every day because it cannot be 
kept ; it wants the two sanctions of punishment and in- 
famy, and Grod, as usual, goes for nothing. This is an 
excellent expedient also, it cannot be denied, for impressing 
the value of an oath on the people, on witnesses in parti- 
cular, swearing for the very same purposes before the 
same authorities, in the very presence of those persons to 
whom perjury is admitted and sanctioned. Let us, again, 
see what is esteemed respecting the validity of an oath in 
the Universities, in that of Oxford, at least ; in that esta- 
blishment founded by religion, maintained for religion, con- 
ducted by members, dignitaries of the Church, for the 
purpose of educating servants of the Church, for the sake of 
religious education. The statutes, drawn up some centuries 
ago, are no longer adapted to the habits and opinions of the 
times ; they cannot be obeyed, and have accordingly fallen 
into disuse. The officers, dignitaries of the Church, who 
enforce them by oath, know that they cannot or will not 
be obeyed; those who take the oaths never intend to 
obey them; they are violated daily with impunity, im- 
punity from man at least ; and yet are these oaths per- 
petually administered, perpetually taken, to be perpetually 
^broken, as they have been daily since the time of Laud. 



ITS AUTHE2^TICITY AND CREDIBILITY. 233 



This is not perjury punislied or punishable by statute, but, 
if an oath means anything, it is perjury to God. And if, 
as the very theory of an oath supposes, the taker calls 
down on himself God's eternal wrath for the infraction or 
non-performance of that which is here a promissory oath, 
a vow, then, is there not a clergyman educated at Oxford 
existing who is not perjured ; who is not, by his own deli- 
berate and solemn act, now lying under the invoked penalty 
of future and eternal punishment ; and this, by the ministers 
of religion, in the very seat of religion, and for the service 
of religion. ' Swear not at all ;' here, at least, it would be 
policy, if no more, to obey the law. And here, also, it is 
unquestionable that the law is broken, because this is the 
precise kind of oath, the very vow itself, which is clearly 
forbidden, and which no gloss can evade. 

" There can be no evasion of any kind here. If an oath 
is anything, in any case, it is binding here ; and if it does 
not bind here, by itself, by its own intrinsic power, as a 
direct and ujiqualified imprecation of God's vengeance, 
where does it bind by those chains of man's forging? 
Nowhere, we should answer ; because we cannot adopt the 
grievously absurd supposition, that a large portion of the 
Church of England, even omitting such laity as have been 
and are under the same engagements, are, as far as they 
have gone to eternity, gone to eternal punishment, and 
must continue to go thither, now and hereafter, until this 
absurd and mischievous custom shall be repealed. 

^' This usage is not now our affair. It lies between God 
and themselves ; and what he may judge of this class of 
perjury, we do not pretend to conjecture. But it is our 
affair to say, or rather to think, that if an oath, quoad oath, 
is not binding in the Universities, it is not by consequence 
;per se, bindmg in any case. "WTiy is it not binding in 
human eyes at the Universities? Clearly for the same 
reasons that it does not bind the imanimous disagreeing 
jury. It wants the two sanctions of human punishment 
and popular infamy. 

"The oath is necessary in cases of evidence, say the 
lawyers, because thus only can you punish pernicious men^ 
dacity in judicial cases. Certainly, at present. But why 



234 



EXODUS: 



not punish pernicious mendacity without the oath ? The 
injury to man is the crime to be punished, not the defiance 
or insult to God. To this one must presume God will 
himself see. But no ; it would not be convenient now to 
punish all judicial mendacity ; it would cut off a vast mass 
of gain, and — what is as little to be desired by lawyers — 
prevent an endless mass of injustice. The effect of an oath, 
in cases of evidence properly so called, is perhaps to inspire 
the judge with undue confidence in the testimony given. 
Admitting the theory of this ceremony, presuming that 
it is to act on those who believe in future punishment for 
its infraction, what is the foundation of the judge's con- 
fidence in its power in individual cases ? It rests on some- 
thing which he cannot know, or even conjecture ; on the 
power of the religious feeling in the swearer's mind, on its 
efficacy against opposing interests. And these interests 
are not merely pecuniary, they may consist in affection, 
political feelings or fancies, hatred, anything in the nature 
of passion of sufficient power to triumph over the principle 
of conscience. 

" The apology for this species of oath is that it is applied 
to a case where we have no other means in our power of 
coming at the truth ; it is that of a positive and negative 
assertion, on the opposed parts of the plaintiff and the 
defendant. But the answer is, that such an oath resembles 
the ancient cases of ordeal, and that as we have no means 
of conjecturing what its power is over either party,it gives no 
security whatever for truth : and that consequently it would 
be far better to take a solemn declaration, attaching to it the 
human penalties of false evidence in case of ascertainedmen- 
dacity. Here is another inconvenience arising from an oath in 
thecase of judicial testimony . To aninexperienced or indolent 
judge, it is an excuse for negligence or laziness. He has 
performedhislegal dutyin receiving testimony thus protected 
for him by the law, and may, therefore, if he pleases, leave 
the responsibility upon the law, and neglect all that be- 
longs to the chances of veracity or otherwise, in the 
witness, as matter extra legal. But what, in reality, is the 
acknowledged value of the oath in this case, in practice ? 
Is it anything at all, or is it ever trusted to ? Scarcely 



ITS AITTHEKTIOITY AND CRSBIBILITY. 235 



ever ; perhaps never. The judge, every one, despises the 
oath which he is bound to administer, and proceeds as if it 
had never been given or thought of. All that he gains by it 
is the power of punishing the mendacious witness, if he 
chooses ; a power rarely exerted, and which might equally 
be granted in any case of judicial mendacity. How is evi- 
dence examined ? Just as it would be if there were no 
oath existent; just as if the ceremony had never been heard 
of; just, we may indeed almost safely add, as if there were 
no such thing as religion. A man cannot be received in 
evidence if he does not believe in Grod, and yet his evidence 
is received and examhied as if there v/ere no Grod. The 
whole religious sanction, without the oath or with it, bears 
no value in practice, even here ; just as we have shown 
that it is perfectly worthless in the case of university 
oaths. Whether the university oath-takers believe, it is 
not our business to inquire ; but they act as if they did not, 
and just so does the judge act in . the examination of evi- 
dence. And properly ; for how can he know what is the 
force of the religious sanction in the mind of the evidence ? 
He forms his judgment by the nature and mode of the 
answers, by their simplicity, and that of. the examinee, or 
otherwise, by his air and look, his tones, his confidence, his 
consistency, by the results of cross-examination. Here he 
has his rules of judgment ; but he has no rule by which to 
judge of the power of the examinee's sense of religion. And 
the longer he lives, the greater his pra;Ctice, so much the 
more does he learn to undervalue or despise the oath ; while 
his experience teaches him, also, that the religious sanction 
is of the least avail in civil cases. Surely, we may fairly ask, 
what is the value of an expedient which is least esteemed 
by those who are best acquainted with its nature ? 

"It is an evil arising from oaths, that they tend naturally 
to make a mtness persist in the falsehood which he has 
already uttered. In all cases, iadeed, retractation is difficult, 
on account of the shame which attends it : but the diffi- 
culty is much increased when to this shame is to be added 
the disrepute of perjury. There also arises a singular evil 
of another character and of a very difi'erent kind — an evil 
from which society at large sufferS; in its. feeHng^N dO; 



236 



EXODUS : 



judge, or the cornet, if it decides justly, is compelled to de- 
cide on the evidence from that conviction which is founded 
on all the collateral circumstances, independent of the oath 
to which we have already alluded ; being in all this regu- 
lated by its knowledge and experience. See the conse- 
quences. There may be numerous sworn witnesses in any 
such case, to whom the court has attached no credit, as 
happens, in fact, in our own courts every day. And in this 
case the falsehood is notorious even to the public ; to the 
audience present and to the whole abroad, by the publica- 
tion of the proceedings. What is the result of this, but to 
prove the painful extent of immorality, and the con- 
tempt in which religion is held ? It is not only that the 
public becomes convinced that an oath is of no value, a con- 
viction sufficiently noxious in itself, but that there is no 
sense of religion among the people, should it happen that 
such events are common. Need we say that they are of 
every-day occurrence ? There is another danger and 
another evil arising from the system of oaths, proceeding 
from a species of modified falsehood, short of their bold and 
plenary infraction. There are hundreds who, flattering 
themselves that the whole bond consists in the ceremony, 
conceiving that a sense of God and religion alone is no 
chain binding them down to the truth, think to escape 
under cover of some oversight, error, or incorrectness, in the 
ceremonial itself. The English swearer kisses his thumb 
instead of the book, and thus establishes in his own mind 
a clear privilege for mendacity. And this evil practically is 
increased, in our own judicial proceedings, by the slovenly 
way in which oaths are administered ; an evil which the 
formula of Scotland has comparatively contrived to escape. 
Where superstitious usages are more minute and numerous, 
the difficulty of procuring a real oath in evidence becomes 
still greater among those who do not consider the intention 
as anything, but who regard the whole as a mere formula, 
partaking of a sort of incantation. Thus in Hindostan, 
the slightest error, out of numerous minute peculiari- 
ties, serves to vacate the oath ; and hence a frequent diffi- 
culty experienced in the Hindoo courts. Thus will a Jew 
question whether the hat on his head is the real hat de§ig- 



m it^fmmmm im antm^tmr, 237 



nated in his law, whether the book is the prope? book. 

Here, it is plain, the very invention is an invention to pro- 
duce and cause mendacity, instead of ensuring truth. It 
transfers the chain which, proceeding from religion, should 
bind the swearer to a formula ; abolishes the ordinary 
religious sanction, should that have any force, to substitute 
in its place a complicated incantatory ceremonial, which 
the fraudulent examinee finds the means of avoiding. And 
even without all this, it is the oath which opens the door to 
^11 kinds of judicial and deceptive falsehood in the shape of 
mental reservations, words pronounced mentally or 
inaudibly, or words used by the speaker in one sense to 
be understood in another. That cannot, surely, be esteemed 
a very dexterous invention, which is, by its very nature, 
an engine for falsehood and fraud." 

Sir William Hamilton, corroborating Bentham as to the 
university oaths, makes the following very potent remarks 
in illustration of the value of oath-taking in religious 
establishments. Speaking of Oxford, he says, " All mem- 
bers ^ of the University make oath to the faithful ob- 
servance of the academical statutes ; and the heads, specially 
sworn to see that these are by all faithfully observed, are 
by statute branded as pre-eminently guilty of ^ broken 
trust and perjury.' If even ' by their negligence, any 
[unrepealed] statute whatever is allowed to fall into 
disuse,' the heads have for themselves voluntarily incurred 
the crime of ^ broken trust and perjury,' in a degree 
infinitely higher than was ever anticipated as possible by the 
legislature, and, for others, have, for their interestedpurposes, 
necessitated the violation of their oaths by all members of 
the University. By law, Oxford is not merely an establish- 
ment for the benefit of the English nation, it is an establish- 
ment for the benefit of those only in community with the 
English Church. But the heads well knew that the man 
will suh scribe thirty -nine articles which he cannot believe, 
who swears to do and to have done a hundred articles which 
he cannot, or does not, perform. The natural tendency of 
the academical ordeal was to sear the conscience of the 
patient to every pious scruple ; and the example of ^ the 
* Discourses on Philosophy, p. 468. 



238 



SXOODTJS 



accursed tUng' thus committed and enfoi*ced by H!ie 

priests in the higli places,' extended its pernicious influence 
from the universities, throughout the land. England 
became the country in Europe proverbial for a disregard of 
oaths ; and the English Church in particular was abandoned 
as a peculiar prey to the cupidity of men allured by its 
endowments, and educated to a contempt of all religious 
tests. As Butler has it :— 

« They swore so many lies before. 
That now, without I'emorse, 
. They take all oaths that can be made, 
As only things of course.' " 

Oath-taking found its origin in bygone ages, in the in- 
fancy of civilisation, in the necessity for gaining some hold 
over the minds of ignorant and barbarous men. Chiefly in 
the hands of the priesthood the power of administering such 
oaths ; chiefly in their hands the influence resulting from 
its administration. Eor a long time it was taught that the 
Church could absolve from all consequences of perjury ; 
that the Pope could release subjects from their oaths of 
allegiance and liberate rulers from their most solemn 
pledges. It is said that Clement VI. granted to the reigning 
Prince and Queen of France and to their successors the 
faculty to break any oaths which they might find it incon- 
venient to observe. Civilisation has swept away much of the 
ignorance and barbarism. It has weakened the power of the 
priesthood. There are comparatively few who now regard 
Church absolution as removing the stain of perjury. How 
long shall it be ere the good sense of the nation shall 
destroy a most useless and pernicious ceremony ; one which 
degrades alike the witness and the judge. In G-reat 
Britain, notwithstanding the Grospel prohibition of oath- 
taking — ^this G-ospel being part and parcel of our common 
law — it is only by obedience to a detestable formula, and 
in opposition to the Grospel injunction, that an Atheist, or 
Deist, can obtain justice. Christians of all sects, Quakers, 
Moravians, and indeed persons of any religion, may now, if 
they choose, affirm instead of being sworn. But persons 
who do not believe in Grod, or in a future state of rewards 
and punishments, are to-day in precisely the same position 



ITS AUTHENTICITY AND CBEDIBILITT. 239 



as that of the Quakers a few years ago. They have no 
choice but to accept a practical outlawry, or to kiss the cover 
of the Bible after the repetition, by the oath- administering 
official, of the peculiar formula, "So help me Grod"— aform 
which to the Atheist is a mockery. Nay. Atheists and all 
so-called Infidels who do not believe in a future state of 
rewards and punishments are, by the common law of 
England, declared utterly incompetent as witnesses. They 
may be sued, but may be prevented from entering the wit- 
ness-box in their own defence. If they are plaintiffs, the 
process must be decided without the Atheist's evidence as to 
his complaint. The mere abolition of the oath ceremony 
would not be enough to meet the case of the non-believer, 
for although a witness might be permitted to affirm, it would 
still be a fatal objection to his competency that he was an 
Atheist, and would, if substantiated, cause the entire rejection 
of his evidence. What is necessary is, that an Act should 
be passed, giving liberty to affirm in all cases, and abolishing 
incompetency on the ground of want of religious faith. The 
liberty to affirm by itself would be useless so long as the 
utter incompetency of the proffered witness is declared by 
our common law. At present, and according to English 
law, any person might murder a bishop in the presence of 
half-a-dozen Atheists, and escape justice, because none of 
those Atheists would be legally competent to bear testi- 
mony as to the murder. 

Chap, xs., vv. 8, 9, 10, 11. — " Eemember the Sabbath-day 
to keep it holy. Six days shalt thou labour, and do all thy 
work. But the seventh day is the Sabbath of the Lord thy 
God ; in it thou shalt not do any work, thou, nor thy son, 
nor thy daughter, thy man-servant, nor thy maid-servant, 
nor thy cattle, nor the stranger that is within thy gates. 
Eor in six days the Lord made heaven and earth, the sea, 
and all that in them is, and rested the seventh day ; where- 
fore the Lord blessed the seventh day, and hallowed it."* 
Deut., chap, v., w. 12, 13, 14, 15.— "Keep the Sabbath- 
day to sanctify it, as the Lord thy Grod hath commanded 
thee. Six days thou shalt labour, and do all thy work. 
But the seventh day is the Sabbath of the Lord thy Gro d ; 
See also Exodus, chap, xxiii., v. 12. 



240 



EXODUS : 



in it thou shalt not clo any work, thou, nor thy son, nor thy 
daughter, nor thy man-servant, nor thy maid- servant, nor 
thine ox, nor thine ass, nor any of thy cattle, nor the 
stranger that is within thy gates ; that thy man-servant and 
thy maid-servant may rest as v/ell as thou. And remember 
that thou wast a servant in the land of Egypt, and that the 
Lord thy Grod brought thee out thence through a mighty 
hand and by a stretched out arm ; therefore the Lord thy 
Grod commanded thee to keep the Sabbath-day." 

"Which of the above texts gives the correct reason for the 
observance of the Sabbath-day ? Is it because, as stated 
in Exodus, that on the seventh day Grod rested after his 
creation labours ? or is it because, as alleged in Deute- 
ronomy, that on that day he rescued the Jews from 
Pharoah's power ? The contradiction is here clear and pre- 
cise ; but passing it on one side, it is not unreasonable to 
ask, bearing in mind the statutory and common law restric- 
tions as to Sunday observance, whether the Christian 
Sunday is in truth identical with the Jewish Sabbath ? If 
not, how does this part of the decalogue as to Saturday 
apply to the conduct of the Christian community on 
Sunday? What is the real origin of the Sabbath ? Does 
the doctrine of Sabbath observance relate to Grod or man ? 
Is it to be judged as a religious dogma or a political need 
that on Sunday man should devote him.self to worship or to 
rest? If the question is a religious one, the Government 
ought not to interfere. The State has no right to decide 
by statute a debatable point in theology, or to inflict 
restraints and penalties on the people (with reference to 
their social conduct on the Sunday), drawn from so-called 
divine decrees applying not to Sunday, but to Saturday, 
and which decrees were issued to a people whose social 
condition was widely different from our own. There is in 
truth not the slightest ground or pretence for the attempt 
to identify the Jewish Sabbath with the Christian Sunday. 
The Jews themselves, by their observance of the seventh 
day of the week, distinctly repudiate the attempt to 
transfer the law of the Pentateuch to the manufacture of 
the first day as a holy day. 

The Christian believer can find in the Grospels no pre* 



ITS AtTTHENTICITY AKD CREBIBIIITT. 



241 



t^nce of sanction for the supposition that Jesus substituted 
first day for seyentli day. Tlie days of our week bear, 
tbrougliout all Eiji^ope, names wliicli mark their connection 
with Isabaism. In England the Saxon mythology has 
modified a little the nomenclature. "Woden and Thor have 
taken their special days, but our Lord, the sun, still gets 
the first day of the week as honour to the chief place he 
occupies in our planetary system. Sunday for the sun, 
Monday for the moon. Tuesday, instead of Mardi, or 
Martedi, the day of the planet 3Iars, takes its name from 
Tuisco, or Tuisto, the god of war to the Saxons, as Mars to 
the G-reeks. Wednesday, instead of Mercredi, or Merc oledi, 
the day of the planet Mercury, is Woden's day. Thurs- 
day, instead of Jeudi, or Jovedi, the day of the planet 
Jupiter, is Thor's day — Thor, the Thunderer, who, in the 
Scandinavian myths, filled Jove's throne. Priday, instead 
of Tenerdi, or Yendredi, the day of Venus, is the day of 
the Saxon goddess, Freya, or Friga. Saturday, or Saturn's 
day, keeps its name. Yet out of these days — none of their 
names of J ewish origin — the followers of the Christian 
Church in this country pick one day, a day which the Jews 
do not recognise ; and, by help of Jewish law, seek to 
frighten us away from the pure air and green fields, away 
from painting and sculpture, away from river and rail, 
away from everywhere but some Great Bethesda or Little 
Bethel, where supreme cant allied to grimmest godliness 
gives Simday sanction to week day sin. 

The Sabbath-day observance societies have no right to 
appeal to Exodus or Deuteronomy. There is no Inik 
between the Sabbath of the Pentateuch and the Pagan 
Simday. Nor can those who desire to devote a day to the 
worship of G-od stop far short of blasphemy with their 
threats of hell-fire as the punishment awarded by infinite 
omnipotence to Sabbath breaking. They say, in efi'ect, 
that little John, a child of respectable parents, having 
opportunities of week-day rambling, is good and righteous, 
and earns hope of heaven by resting contented in only 
walking from his parents' residence to church or chapel on 
Simday ; but that little James, the weaver's son, who works 
in a lucifer match manufactory, and inbreathes poison from 



242 



EXODtrs : 



six on Monday mom till six on Saturday eve, will incur 

the penalty of deep damnation, l3ecause, up with the lark on 
Sunday morn, he runs away from the wretched shelter of 
home to the side of the clear sparkling river to look for fish 
who do not go to church, or ramble through the fields and 
woods to enjoy the odour-laden breeze, or to chase those 
ephemeral existences for whom even a Spurgeon has not 
yet reserved an eternity of brimstone for stretching their 
wings on Sunday. 'Tis rank sin for carpenter James to 
buy on Sunday morning from costermongers' barrows the 
poor provender for Sunday's meal ; and if Exeter Hall and 
Newington Tabernacle speak truly, the creator and ruler 
of an infinity of worlds eagerly watches with angry jealousy 
to punish such awful crime. Three boys at toss-halfpenny 
on Sunday morning grieve the immutable, and render him 
severe and unforgiving, while he shows, nevertheless, great 
mercy towards a crowned murderer who tramples on the 
liberties of a nation. 

Does the workman need a rest-day ? Yes, indeed, and 
many more than he gets, or is likely to get. A weekly 
rest-day is good to keep ; in that it breaks a little the too 
much machine-like existence which so many of the masses 
endure. But rest to the weaver, with treddle-wearied legsr 
and shuttle- tired fingers, means a stroll across the verdanl 
carpet spread by nature, a walk in the green lanes, sun- 
shaded by the foliage-covered trees. Eest to the unname* 
able, because innumerable, multitude of handicraftsmen who 
rise from their couches to toil and rejoin their beds to 
gather new strength for next day's labour — rest to them ; 
change is rest. Let their eyes feast on the beautiful, let 
their ears drink in harmony. Let our picture-galleries, our 
collections of sculpture, our museums, and public gardens 
and parks be wide opened, and let the best music, fruit of 
highest genius, soften, for at least one hour per week, the 
harshness of the clang of the six days' struggle to live. Let 
road, river, lane, and field teem on Sunday with the out- 
loosed life which is pent up too often in unwholesome areas 
from Monday to Saturday. Out of the way with your 
threats of eternal brimstone after death ; let me free into 
the open space where I may inhale the rich perfume of the 



ITS AT7THEKTICITY AKB CSEDHBIIITT, 243 



life elixir the pure atmosphere affords. G-et you gone with 
your grim, sti'aight- combed, miserable heads — clasp your 
hands, down on your knees, if you will ; we, with easy 
elastic step, are off for a Sunday wandering ; and as we 
return, odour-laden with Nature's freshness, we ask you, if 
there be a life-giver, is it not good worship to try to guard 
the gift ? 

What is the real origin of the Sabbath-day ? Kalisch 
says : — " Although* every calm Biblical critic will sedu- 
lously keep aloof from mystic speculations on the hidden 
properties of the numbers, it cannot be denied that in the 
sacred volume some numbers predominate, which bear a 
holy and religious character. Among these the number 
seven ranks first. Its fi^eqiient, almost regular repetition 
cannot be accidental. The seventh day is the Sabbath ; 
the seventh year, the noDtl^, SheMeTE, or the Sabbath of 
the fields ; after seven times seven years, the Jubilee, or 
the perfect restoration of the original conditions of pro- 
perty ensues ; the seventh new moon is the ' day of the 
sound of the trumpet,' or ' the day of remembrance ;' the 
seventh month is almost entirely occupied with the holiest 
festivals ; Passover lasted seven days, and on every day a 
sacrifice of seven lambs was offered ; seven days was the 
Feast of Tabernacles, and seven weeks lie between Passover 
and Pentecost ; seven days the young animals remained 
with their mothers before they were fit for firstling- 
ofierings (Exodus, xxii., 29) ; the circumcision was per- 
formed after full seven days from the birth ; seven days was 
the legal duration for. many Levitical lustrations : during 
seven days the priests were initiated ; seven times the blood 
was sprinkled at important expiatory sacrifices; seven 
days lasted the mourning for the dead (G-en., i., 10) ; 
seven days also the marriages (Judges, xiv., 12) ; seven 
animals were, in primeval times, presented on solemn occa- 
sions as alliances and promises (G-en., xxi., 28-30) ; and the 
sacred word oath (n^^MW) is etymologically connected with 
the number seven ; symbolical actions are repeated 

seven times (1 Kings, xviii., 43 ; 2 Kings, v., 10, 14 ; com- 
pare G-en., iv., 15 ; Eze ., xxxix., 9 ; xl., 12 ; xli., 3 ; Num ., 
* Kalisch, Exodus, p. 448. 



xxiii., 1, 14,29; 1 Chron., x., 12, ect.) ; tlie mai'k of the 

highest reverence was a sevenfold prostration (Gen., 
xxxiii., 3) ; and a progeny of seven children was considered 
a peculiar blessing (1 Sam., ii., 5 ; Jer., xv., 9 ; Job, i., 2) ; 
seven was, in fact, frequently used as a number signifying 
many^ in general, or as the number Teat eccochen (Deut., 
xxviii., 7 ; Judges, xv., 7, 17 ; 2 Kings, iv., 35 ; Isaiah, iv., 1 ; 
XL, 15; Job, v., 19; Mich., v., 4; Euth, iv., 15). Seven 
-chief utensils were in the holy tabernacle — 1, the altar of 
l)urnt offerings ; 2, the laver ; 3, the show-bread table ; 
4, the altar of incense ; 5, the candelabrum ; 6, the ark ; 
and 7, the mercy seat and the cherubim, which formed one 
vessel, XXV. et seq_. But even in historical events the 
number seven is very markedly obvious. Noah took into 
the ark seven pairs of every clean animal (Gen., vii., 2) ; 
seven days before the beginning of the Deluge he was once 
more informed of it (verse 4) ; he waited seven days after 
having first sent out the dove ; and when she returned, 
seven days more (verses 10, 12) ; Jacob served seven years 
for Leah and seven years for Eachel (Gen., xxix., 20, 27, 30) ; 
Pharaoh dreamt of seven fat and seven lean cows, of seven 
full and of seven empty ears of corn ; and accordingly seven 
years of abundance and seven years of famine ensued (Gen., 
xL, 1 ; compare 2 Sam., xxiv., 13 ; 2 Kings, viii., 1) ; the 
father-in-law of Moses had seven daughters (Exod., ii., 16), 
of whom Moses selected the worthiest for his wife ; Jericho 
was encircled during seven days ; on the seventh day seven 
priests, with seven trumpets, passed seven times round the 
city, which was then only attacked and taken (Josh., vi.) ; 
Solomon finished the temple in seven years (1 Kings, 
vi., 38) ; and at its consecration celebrated a festival of 
twice seven days (viii., 65). It would be easy by obvious 
combinations to increase this list considerably, and we 
mention only that the three patriarchs and their four wives 
make the number seven ; but we may distinctly call atten- 
tion to the fact that the three ' signs of the covenant' of 
Mosaism, circumcision, the Passover, and the Sabbath, are 
all connected with the number seven. The same mystic 
number prevails especially in the Indian mythology : a God 
shines through the world on a chariot drawn by seven 



ITS ATJTHEKTICITT AND CREDIBIIITT.- 245 



horses ; there are seven worlds (Locas), seven great con- 
tinents^ (Dripas), seven oceans ; the human body consists of 
seven chief members ; there aj^e seven periods in the life of 
man, &c. 

" The simple and obvious explanation of the holiness of 
the number seven is that the ancient Israelites, as most of 
the Eastern nations, counted originally their months after 
the course of the moon, which renews itself in four quarters 
of seven and three-eighths days each, and after this time 
assumes a new phase. These periodical and extraordinary 
changes of the moon produced a powerful impression upon 
the susceptible minds of the ancient nations. They excited 
them to reflections on this wonderful phenomenon, and 
everything connected with it assumed, in their eyes, a 
peculiar significance. Hence the day of the new moon was 
generally celebrated with some distinguishing solemnity, 
which, like all festivals, is regulated and fixed in the Mosaic 
law (Xum., X., 10, xxviii., 11, &c.) ; and the new moon is in 
the Old Testament frequently mentioned together vrith the 
jSabbath (2 Kings, iv., 23 ; Isaiah, i., 13, &c.) Hereto we 
add that the number of the seven planets known to them 
(Saturn, Jupiter, Mars, the Sun, Yenus, Mercury, the 
Moon), which successively presides over the hours of the 
day, and each of which commenced, therefore, a different 
day, contributed in later times not a little to secui^e to it 
that mysterious significance, especially as the result of the 
astrological pursuits soon brought all human afi'airs and 
occupations into some relation with those planets. But 
that division of the week into seven days was known and 
adopted by the most different nations, as the Assyrians, 
Arabs, Indians, Chinese, Peruvians (but not the Persians), 
and many African and American tribes, which never came 
iato intercourse with the Israelites, and later by the G-reeks 
and Eomans, who followed the Egyptians. We must, 
therefore, recognise therein, not an exclusively theocratical, 
but a general astronomical arrangement, which offered 
itself to the simplest planetary observation of every people." ' 

So far KaHsch. M. Priaulx, in his comments on Genesis. , 
Jeals with the same question. He says 



246 



SXOBUS : 



The Book of G-enesis tells us that a septenary cycle 
was possibly known to Noah, and certainly in usfe with 
Laban and his family. But that cycle is represented as 
subordinate to, and merely the consequence of, the Sabbath- 
day ; as, in fact, owing its existence to the observance of 
that day ; and yet throughout Grenesis, with the exception 
of this creation, there is not the slightest allusion to any 
seventh as a peculiarly holy day. Not, indeed, till after the 
Exodus is the ScMath mentioned, and then its sanctity is 
pressed upon us in almost every verse, and its observance 
is ensured by the heaviest penalties ; the very severity with 
which it is commanded bespeaks it an innovation, and no 
ancestral and well-established custom. In a word, we have 
no evidence whatever that the hebdomadal, as a constantly 
recurring cycle, as dividing and measuring the whole year, 
was known to the Hebrews before their settlement in 
Egypt. And we must conclude, therefore, that the weeks 
of jSToah and Laban were merely any seven days set apart 
for a festal or a religious purpose, perhaps because the 
heptad, or number seven, was held in peculiar reverence, or 
for some other reason which at this distance of time it 
would be vain to speculate on, but which may easily be 
drawn from many natural phenomena, as from the first 
chapter of Grenesis. The Egyptian week is a cycle of 
seven days, each one of which has its appropriate name, 
taken from the planet to which it is dedicated. Did not, 
then, the Egyptians, a people devoted to astrology, thence 
fix the number of their days ? Or were they led to a 
division of their months into weeks by the observation that 
the moon required seven days from new moon to its first 
quarter, and other seven days to reach its full, and so on to 
its decline ? And did they, then, finding that the planets 
were the same in number as the days, apply the names of 
the one to denote the other ? I cannot determine which of 
these is the more probable reason for the Egyptian week ; 
but I perceive that, as that week was associated with no 
events, hallowed by no traditions, it had no arbitrary origin, 
but was founded on an observation, never mind how crude, 
o f the phenomena of Nature ; and that, therefore, like other 
* Priaulx Questiones Mosaicse, p. 3G. 



ITS ATTTSEKTICJITt AKD CREBIBILITT, 247 



natural divisions of time, it might "be alike original in China, 
in Haran, and in Egypt. If, however, it is necessary to 
decide between the pretentions of the Jews and those of 
the Egyptians, we must avow that it seems to us just as 
probable that the Jews, who show none but accidental or 
traditional reasons for the use of their cycle, should have 
borrowed it from the Egyptians, as it is improbable that 
the Egyptians, with whom it appears as a natural measure 
of time, should have acquired it from the Jews." 

After drawing attention to Persia, China, India, and 
Mexico, as using no Sabbath, M, Priaulx proceeds : — 

" The savage on his return from a successful chase makes 
holiday and prepares a plentiful banquet, and gorges- him- 
self with food, and then lays himself down to sleep, and 
wakes but to eat again, and then again to sleep, until his 
stock of provisions is exhausted, and hunger at length 
rouses him to fresh exertions. His life is divided between 
the severest toil and the most listless indolence. So soon, 
however, as men begin to live in societies, and have learned 
to tame and to keep cattle, and to cultivate the earth, so 
soon as they have some assured means of subsistence, so 
we find their legislators regulating the alternations of 
labour and repose, consecrating particular days of rest, and 
lialloiving these days by dedicating them to the Grods, and 
making them happy days for the people, by adorning them 
with feasts and games, and solemn sacrifice. Thus among 
the Egyptians, according to Herodotus, there were many 
public festivals. In Greece the days were of three kinds- 
working days, black days, and festal days. 

" On most of these last days, the shops and courts of 
judicature were shut up. The labourers rested from 
their works, the tradesmen from their employments, the 
mourners intermitted their sorrows, and nothing but ease 
and pleasure,mirth and jollity, were to be found among them. 

" In Home the days were similarly divided ; every ninth 
day was a holiday, and on holidays the citizens were expected 
to abstain from litigation and quarrels, and the slave from 
labour. Tlie Fersians, besides many other holidays, cele- 
brated the five intercalary days (dies appendices), which 
completed their year, in joy and feasting. These same days, 



248 



the Mexicans believed, * had been purposely left by their 
ancestors as days of vocation, and during this time they 
gave themselves up wholly to idleness, and only studied 
how to lose that overplus of time. Tradesmen left off 
work, the business of the tribunals ceased, and the very 
sacrifices in the temples.' In China^ the holidays were new 
and full moon. In India, there are certain prescribed days, 
on which the superstitious Hindoo dares not even clean his 
teeth. Among the Boodhists, of Ceylon, four days of the 
month are dedicated to public worship — the four first days 
of the changes of the moon ; when those who are able attend 
at the temples. There are no other public days of festival 
or thanksgiving ; all, however, are at liberty to select such 
days for themselves, and these they particularise by acts of 
devotion, consisting in fasting, prayer, and forming resolu- 
tions for their future good conduct ; all which devout acts 
are addressed to their saviour Boodha." 

The Mishna, in the treatises entitled, " Sabbath Erubin 
and Yom Tob," gives some curious and some very ridiculous 
examples of the rabbinical regulations for Sabbath obser- 
vance. These go so far as to declare that a tailor may not 
carry his needle with him late on Sabbath eve for fear he 
might be tempted to sew on the Sabbath. One rabbi Jose 
declares that a one-legged cripple must not carry with him 
his wooden leg on the Sabbath. A man with toothache on 
the Sabbath must not rinse his teeth with vinegar. A. 
flower may not be plucked from a perforated flower-pot, but 
it may be plucked from a flower-pot not perforated. 

According to Exodus, chap, xxxi., v. 14, chap, xxxv., v. 2, 
Sabbath breaking was to be punished with death ; and in 
Numbers, chap, xv., v. 32, an instance is given of the actual 
infliction of this penalty. If Sabbatarians were thoroughly 
logical, they ought to claim that all Sabbath breakers should 
be stoned to death. 

According to English law, travelling in a stage or mail- 
coach on a Sunday is lawful, and the driver is lawfully em- 
ployed. (See ex parte Middleton, 3 Barnewall and Cress- 
weU, p. 164, and Sandiman v. Breach, 7 Barnewall and 
Cresswell, p. 96.) Cor^tracts to carry passengers in a 
stage-coach on Sunclay ar§ therefore binding, but tfee 



ITS ATJTHENTICITT AOT CBEDIBILITY, 



249 



driver of a van travelling to and from distant towTis, such 
as London and York, is nnlawfully employed, and may he 
prosecuted and fined twenty sMllings for each offence (see 
cases quoted siijora) ; and, presuming that the laws of Grod 
and England are in unison, the driver of the van will bo 
damned for Sahhath breaking, and the driver of the stage- 
coach will go to heaven for the same offence. By the 10 
and 11 "William, cap. 24, mackerel may be sold on 
Sunday either before or after Divine service. There is no 
offence against the common law of England in trading or 
working on a Sunday; therefore the statutes must be 
strictly construed. If a butcher should shave on a Sunday, 
he woidd commit no offence, because it would not be 
following his ordinary calling. Persons exercising their 
calling on a Sunday are only subject to one penalty, for the 
whole is but one offence, or one act of exercising, although 
continued the whole day. A baker, pastry-cook, or confec= 
tioner is liable to be prosecuted if selling bread and pastry 
before nine or after half-past one o'clock on the Sunday 
(sec. 34, Geo. III., cap. 61 ; 1 and 2, Greo. IV., cap. 50, 
sec. 11 ; and 3, Greo. VI., cap. 106). If the Archbishop of 
Canterbury's cook, groom, footman, butler, and all other 
his men-servants and maid-servants do not each of them 
attend church every Sunday, they may be prosecuted and 
fined under the 1, Elizabeth, cap. 2 ; and 3, James I., cap. 4. 
If the Archbishop of Canterbury's coachman drive his 
master to church on Sunday, and if his footman stand 
behind the carriage, these being their ordinary callings, and 
not works of charity or necessity, they may be prosecuted 
and fined 5s. each under the 29, Car. II., cap. 7. 
Tobacconists may be prosecuted for selling tobacco and 
cigars on a Sunday. Eailway o£B.cials may be punished for 
working on a Sunday ; certainly on excursion trains. The 
stokers and men employed on the steamboats plying to 
Gravesend, &c., are also Hable to prosecution, although a 
few watermen enjoy the privilege of Sabbath breaking by 
Act of Parliament. Civil contracts made on a Sunday are 
void, with some few exceptions — viz., a soldier may be en- 
listed on a Sunday (Walton ^. Gavin, 16 ; Queen's Bench, 
48) ; a labourer may be hired on a Sunday (Eex v. 



250 



fiXODTTS : 



Whitmarsli, 7 ; Barnewell and Carrington, 596) ; a 

guarantee may be given for the faithful services of a person 
about to be employed (Norton v. Powell, 4 ; Manning and 
Grant, 42) ; a bill of exchange may be drawn on a Sunday 
(Begbie v. Levi, 1 ; Carrington and Payne, 180). Civil 
process must not be served on Sunday, but an ecclesiastical 
citation may ; therefore, the Church reserves to itself the 
right of Sabbath breaking on all occasions. No civil arrest 
can be made on Sunday. A cookshop may be open on a 
Sunday for the sale of victuals. Every person who should 
go to Hyde Park, or any of the other parks, to hear the 
band play, if out of his own parish, is Kable to be fined 
3 s. 4d. If two or three go from out of their smoky city 
residences to the Lea to fish, or to the green fields to play 
cricket, they may each be fined 3s. 4d., if out of the parish 
in which they reside. 

Verse 13. — " Thou shalt not kill." This verse must be 
qualified by chap, xxi., vv. 20 and 21, and by Deut., chap, vii., 
v. 2 ; Deut., chap, xx., v. 13 to 16, and similar texts. 

Verse 17. — The Samaritan Codex here differs very con- 
siderably from our version, inserting in substance the 23 to 
27 verses of the fifth chapter of Deuteronomy. Josephus 
follows the Samaritan, with slight variation. 

Chap, xxi., w. 2 to 6. — " If thou buy an Hebrew servant,* 
six years he shall serve : and in the seventh he shaU go out 
free for nothing. If he came in by himself, he shall go out 
by himself : if he were married, then his wife shaU go out 
with him. If his master have given him a wife, and she 
have born him sons or daughters ; the wife and her children 

* The word "servant" OBeD, is in Cahen translated slave." 
Gesenius Lexicon, p. 599, translates " a servant who amongst the 
Hebrews was commonly ' a slave.' '* Parkhurst, p. 608, " a servant 
or slave." Newman in his Lexicon, p. 450, says, " a slave either for 
life or a limited period." (A hired servant is "^^^U^ SheKIR)— see 
Eichorn's Simonis, vol. ii., p. 1,137 ; and Bresslan, p. 416. The same 
word, OBeD, is used in Leviticus, chap, xxv., vv. 44 and 45. In v. 
6, the word translated Judges, is D^n^b^ ALEIM, which is, i Genesis, 
translated Gods (see commentary on Genesis, p. 11). The Septuagint 
has instead of " before the Judges,'' " before the tribunal of God." 
The Douay, following the Latin Vulgate, has, instead of Judges," 
"Gods." 



ITS AUTHENTICITT AND CREDIBIETTT. 251 



shall be her master's, and he shall go out by himself. And 
if the servant shall plainly say, I love my master, my wife 
and my children ; I v^ill not go out free. Then his master 
shall bring him unto the judges ; he shall also bring him 
to the door, or unto the door post ; and his master shall 
bore his ear through with an awl ; and he shall serve him 
for ever." 

These verses recognise, and in most terrible language, 
the existence of slavery as an institution connected with 
the then Jewish future. They declare that a man may buy a 
Hebrew servant, provide him with a bond- wife, and breed 
bond-children, who shall become the property of the master. 

The offer of liberty to the Hebrew servant at the end of 
six years' servitude, on condition that he abandoned his 
wife and children, is a piece of indefensible cruelty. Did 
the writer of Exodus not know that a slave might love 
liberty and yet not desire to leave his family slaves while he 
enjoyed solitary freedom? Was Grod aware that some- 
times the most vrretched slave may have true and warm 
affection for his wife and children ? Is a slave ever a man 
with a man's passions and feelings 5 or, is he always a 
chattel, or inferior animal ? 

It is a puzzling theory this, and, at first glance, scarcely 
worthy of a place in a revelation from an all- wise and all- 
good G-od — that a man may be a religious man and yet 
keep his brother and sister as male and female slaves, 
breeding and begetting other slaves. 

" If the servant shall plainly say, I love my master, my 
wife, and my children," why he would be less than a man 
if he did not love his wife and his children even more than 
a freedom which would be embittered by the consciousness 
of his family's slavery. He would be a strange husband if 
he did not wish to stay with them rather than be separated 
from them. The phrase, " I love my master," is a most 
diabolical addition. Could a man love the master in whose 
hands he would be forced to leave his wife and children as 
slaves, and would not the expression of love towards him 
be a venial falsehood in order to secure the opportunity of 
protecting the wife whom he had sworn to love, and the chil- 
dren whom he was bound to protect, because he had caused 



252 



EXODUS : 



tlieir birth ? "What is the slave's reward for his love ? If he 

prefers staying with his wife and children, does Grod give 
him his freedom as his recompense ? — give the whole family 
their freedom, their reward? No. He says that the 
man who should be honest enough, humane enough, the 
man who should be true enough, to stay behind to protect 
his wife and his children — that man should be taken before 
the judge, should have his ear bored through, and be a 
slave for ever — a slave without hope of freedom — a slave 
without prospect of redemption ; and this apparently 
because he has committed the crime of loving his wife and 
children. If he hated them — did not care for them — if he 
had no fatherly, no husbandly love, he might go free ; but 
because he loved his wife and children, for that crime 
he must pay the penalty of being a slave for ever. 

Verse 6. which provides that the Hebrew servant is 
always to continue in serfdom, is confirmed in Deut., 
chap. XV., V. 17, but is contradicted by Leviticus, chap, xxv., 
vv. 39, 40, 41, 42, 43, where the release of the Hebrew 
brother is to appear in the year of the Jubilee. 

Verses 7, 8, 9, 10, 11. — These verses contain a provision 
for the sale by a man of his own daughter. And for what 
purpose ? Our translators have carefully endeavoured to 
hide the real meaning of the text. Verse 7 reads, "And 
if a man sell his daughter to be a maid-servant, she shall 
not go out as the men-servants do." In the Douay it is, 

If a man sell his daughter to be a servant, she shall not 
go out as hondwomen are wont to go out." Elalisch says, 
no^b LAME, is here rather concubine than maid-servant. 
Cahen says, " The father had power to sell his daughter at 
any age, na^!? LAME, slave. The difierence between 
this word and nnsti; ShePheChE, appears to me to be this, 
nnSDil^ ShePheChE generally designates a female slave, and 
HD^^ AME is the honorary title taken by the slave, become 
imother from Di^ mother, a matron. In admitting this, the 
whole of the paragraph, difficult enough otherwise, becomes 
:very clear. It speaks of a father who sells his daughter 
ibO a master who makes her his concubine." 

The 8th verse in our translation jeads — If she please not 
lier master, who hath betrothed her to himself, then shall 



ITS AUTHENTICITY CBEDIBlLITY. 2^5 



he let her be redeemed to sell her to a strange nation ; he 
shall have no power seeing he hath dealt deceitfully with her^'' 
In the Douay, "If she displease the eyes of her master to 
whom she was delivered, he shall let her go, but he shall 
have no power to sell her to a foreign nation if he despise 
herT In the margin of Breeches Bible the last words of 
the 8th verse are translated, " seeing he hath deflowered 
her." Cahen renders ay ant eteinfidele envers elle^^^ " having 
been unfaithful towards her." Kalisch in his note to this 
verse adds, " he had brought her from her father only under 
the condition and with the promise to live with her in con- 
jugal intercourse." 

Verse 10.— In our version it is, " If he take him another 
wife^ her food, her raiment, and her duty of marriage, he 
shall not diminish." In the Douay, " If he take another 
wife for him, he shall provide her a marriage, and raiment, 
neither shall he refuse th.e price of her chastity'' (Yulgato 
pretiim pudicitcB.) In the Breeches Bible, " If he take 
him another wife, he shall not diminish her food, her 
raiment, and recompense of her virginity ^ The word 
nn::^ ONeThE in our version, duty of marriage," is in 
Kalisch translated," conjugal cohabitation." Cahen writes, 
" le devoir C07ijiigal.'' 

Can any man doubt as to the real meaning of the above 
four verses ? Is it not clear and beyond contradiction that 
here is a law professedly from a God of truth and purity, 
rendering it lawful for a man to sell his own daughter, in 
order that she may fill a place in the seraglio of her 
purchaser. Our translators have somewhat glossed the 
text, partially hiding its disgusting meaning, but still 
enough was left to excite suspicion. Is this the Book 
from which you let your little girls read, and from which 
you expect them to acquire that knowledge which shall 
render them happy and virtuous ? 

Verse 16. — "And he that stealeth a man, and seUeth him, 
or if he be found in his hand, he shall surely be put to 
death." Cahen ti^anslates this verse, omitting the word 
" or," ), for which there is no Hebrew equivalent. The 

* See Lexicon's under 1^1 Eichorn's Simonis, p. 205 — G-esenius, p. 
102— Parkhurst, p. 55— Kalisch, Exodus, p. 389. 



254 



EXOBTTS: 



Douay has, " being convicted of the guilt." The Rabbis 

discussed how the man being sold could still be found in 
the hands of his vendor, and they taught that the stolen 
person must have been seen in the house of the kidnapper, 
and then have been sold to another — without which the 
offence was not complete. The Eabbis applied this only 
to stealing an Israelite (see Deut., chap, xxiv., v. 7). 

Verse 20. — " And if a man smite his servant, or his maid 
with a rod, and he die under his hand, he shall surely be 
punished." The Douay has, " He that striketh his bondman, 
or bondwoman, with a rod, and they die under his hand, 
they shall be guilty of the crime." 

Verse 21. — " Notwithstanding, if he continue for a day 
or two, he shall not be punished, for he is his money." 
The Douay says, " But if the party remain alive a day or 
two, he shall not be punished, because it is his money." 
Cahen, " If he survives for a day or two." Colenso says, 
" I shall never forget the revulsion of feeling, with which 
a very intelligent Christian native, with whose help I was 
translating these words in the Zulu tongue, first heard 
them a words said to be uttered by the same great and 
gracious Being, whom I was teaching him to trust in and 
adore. His whole soul revolted against the notion, that 
the great and blessed Grod, the merciful Eather of all 
mankind, would speak of a servant, or maid, as mere 
' money,' and allow a terrible crime to go unpunished, 
because the victim of the brutal usage had survived a few 
hours."^ We are here told that if one of Grod's children, 
whom Grod caused to be born free, or who had, during life, 
risen to freedom, kills another of Grod's children, whom 
Grod has caused to be born a slave, or who, during life, has 
been reduced to thraldom, the murderer of the owner of the 
victim shall escape punishment, if (asi the Douay quaintly 
expresses it) the victim remain alive a day or two after the 
infliction of the punishment, which was the primary cause 
of death ; and this notwithstanding v. 12, which says, ^ He 
that smiteth a man, so that he die, shall be surely put to 
death." Why is this mercy ? Is it because there i-s some 
extenuating circumstance which reduces the heinousness 



♦ Part 1, p. 9. 



ITS ArTHEyilCITY ASB CEEDIBILITT. 



255 



of the crime ? Is one who read the Pentateuch can suppose 
the God of the Jews to be tender hearted as to taking 
human life. "Why is the murderer spared ? Has mercy any 
voice ? No : but because the slave killed is the murderer's 
money; because the murderer bought and paid for that 
slave with current coin, justice is reverent to wealth and 
the power of gold is recognised even in the kingdom of 
God. To day the Society for Suppression of Cruelty to 
Animals would prosecute and obtain the committal to 
prison of any man, who, on such prosecution, should be 
found guilty of beating his horse or his dog, so that it died 
on the second or third day. It would be no defence to urge 
on the part of the prisoner that he had paid for the ill-used 
animal. It would be a rash advocate who ventured to raise 
such a defence. But in a trial at the last day before the 
Supreme Judge, when a Legree " is accused of the 
murder of an " Uncle Tom," the accused, relying on the 
Pentateuch, may raise a valid defence with the words, ^'He 
was my money." The power of gold will open the gates of 
heaven to the murderer, who can look complacently down 
into hell upon the murderers who had no money. 

Yerses 23, 24, 25. — And \fa7i2/ mischief follow, then thou 
shalt give life for life. Eye for eye, tooth for tooth, hand 
for hand, foot for foot. Burning for burning, wound for 
wound, stripe for stripe." Aben Ezra quotes a Jewish 
writer who denied that these verses could be taken literally; 
for instance, how could you apply the law " eye for eye " 
to a blind man, who had put out the eye of one possessing 
both organs of sight in good condition. How make a 
retaliative wounding neither more nor less dangerous than 
that for which it is retiibution.* 

Terse 32. — If the ox shall push a man-servant or maid- 
servant ; he shall give unto their master thirty shekels oi 
silver, and the ox shall be stoned." The slave is quite 
treated as a mere chattel for loss or injury to which the 
master is to receive compensation. According to the cal- 
culation of Kalisch, thirty shekels of silver would be about 
seventy-two shillings and sixpence. In the Hebrew this 



* Cahen, Exode, p. 96. 



256 



EXODUS : 



chapter numbers thirty-seven verses — the first verse of 
chapter twenty-two being included in chapter twenty- one. 

Chapv :s:xii., v. 9. — " Eor all manner of trespass, whether 
it be for ox, for ass, for sheep, for raiment, or for any 
manner of lost thing, which another challengeth to be his, 
the cause of both parties shall come before the judges ; 
and whom the judges shall condemn, he shall pay double 
unto his neighbour." The Douay join this to the last 
verse and read, " To do any fraud, either in ox, or ass, or 
sheep, or raiment, or anything that may bring damage : 
the cause of both parties shall come to the Grods, and, if 
they give judgment, he shall restore double to his neigh- 
bour.'' Cahen translates, " In all kinds of wrong relating 
to an ox, an ass, a lamb, or any lost object, of which they 
shall say that is it, the cause of the two shall come before 
the judges ; and he whom the judges shall condemn shall 
tender double to his neighbour." He adds that it is dif- 
ficult to seize the precise meaning of the verse. The word 
"judges" or "gods," as the Douay gives it, is D^nb^^, 
ALEIM (see "Bible : What it Is," Grenesis,pages 7andll). 
Kalisch, who translates the verse somewhat differently, 
draws attention to further variation in the Septuagint and 
Luther's version, and says that there is no authority for 
the English rendering, " which another challengeth to be 
his." 

Verse 11. — " Here an oath is commanded ; in Matthew, 
chap, v., w. 34 to 37 ; and James, chap, v., v. 12, oaths are 
forbidden." 

Verse 18.—" Thou shalt not sufi'er a witch to live." The 
Septuagint has "poisoner" instead of "witch." In the 
Douay, " "Wizards thou shalt not suS'er to live." Can 
we wonder that our criminal courts occasionally reveal a 
scene of life in which we see some poorly taught servant 
girl parting with her hard-earned pence to propitiate some 
man or woman, whom she believes to possess supernatural 
power ? It is customary, on such occasions, for the pre- 
siding magistrate to deplore the ignorance of the labouring 
classes, and to exclaim against the folly of believing in 
witches and wizards, yet he swears the witnesses on the 
Eible, containing this verse, and would refuse to receive the 



ITS AUTHENTICITY AND CEEDILILITT. 



257 



evidence, if, after hearing the magistrate's opinion on the 
folly of believing in witchcraft, the deponent should happen 
to remark, " Then I cannot believe in the Bible." Kalisch 
declares that the doctrine of sorcery or witchcraft is op- 
posed to Mosaism,* and that the idea of Satan as an evil 
principle was only borrowed after the Babylonian Capti- 
vity. "We are placed, however, in this difficulty — i.e,^ that 
either the Pentateuch is the reliable record of Mosaic 
doctrines, or there is no reliable record in existence ; and, 
according to the Pentateuch, it is clear that the possibility 
of sorcery, enchantment, witchcraft, &c., was recognised. 
"Witches are not spoken of as impostors but as criminals. 
The doctrine of the existence of angels and demons, of 
familiar spirits, who might be subject to human control, of 
guardian angels and evil genii, is as old as the childhood 
of nations. Those who have recognised, on the one hand, 
the theory of the existence of G-od and of good angels 
have, on the other hand, been quick to admit the doctrine 
of Satan and his devils. Hoping and believing that Grod 
and his angels were propitiated by prayer and offerings ; 
they have also believed and feared that Beelzebub and his 
legions might be similarly influenced.f 

Almost every mythology which has existed among man- 
kind has sanctioned the belief, that beings exist in the uni- 
verse greatly superior to the human race in wisdom and 
power, and regarding mankind with the most deadly hos- 
tility. The terrors of this faith have, in many instances, 
been very much aggravated by the absurd idea, that it is 
possible for mortals to become the allies of these super- 
human beings, to partake their power and to assist their 
evil designs. In some countries, the persons to whom 
such a compact is attributed are venerated as the favoured 
priests and servants of a formidable Deity. In others, the 
accusation of witchcraft is the ready pretext for robbing 
or murdering an obnoxious neighbour. But, in almost all 
nations, savage or civilised, the delusion exists or has 

* Exodus, p. 426 and contra 115. See also Deuteronomy, c. xviii., 
V. 10, and Leviticus, c. xx., vv. 26 to 81. 

t Monboddo Antient Metaphysics, vol. iv., Book 2, c. 7. Farmer m 
tlie Demoniacs, p. 13. 



25S 



EXODUS : 



existed. A very slight knowledge of the absurd and de- 
grading notions, anciently entertained respecting the spiri- 
tual world, will enable our readers to form a sufficiently accu- 
rate idea of the accusations which were common in the old 
trials for witchcraft in Europe, and especially in our own 
land. Neither Tasso nor Dante was superior to the 
superstition which clothed a supposed fallen archangel 
in the vulgar terrors of horns, tusks, and cloven feet. In 
their age, and since the witch was generally a spiteful old 
woman, who had sold her salvation for the pleasure of 
blighting her neighbours' corn, destroying their cattle, and 
feasting by night in their cellars and larders,' her familiar 
spirit or attendant devil was present as a cat, a toad, or, 
in some peculiarly atrocious cases, a blue-bottle fly ; the 
Demon, to whose service the witch devoted herself accord- 
ing to popular repute, combined the lowest passions of 
humanity with the stupidity, ferocity, and almost the out- 
ward shape of a wild beast. 

The old maxim of English law that an accused person 
is regarded as innocent imtil proved guilty, did not apply 
to cases of witchcraft. In these it was reversed, and, in 
default of testimony against the accused, tests were applied. 
The most common test was the ancient ordeal by immer- 
sion in water, or, as it was called, swimming ; in which the 
failure of the accused party to sink completely was held 
an infallible proof of guilt. This test was most comforting ; 
if innocent the patient got drowned, if he escaped drowning 
he was burned. Another approved method was by prick- 
ing ; which consisted in puncturing the body of the unfor- 
timate victim, in the hope of detecting the marhs or in- 
sensible spots, which were supposed to exist in every witch. 
In a third, the culprit was kept bound hand and foot, 
without food, drink, or sleep, for a day and night ; it being 
thought that no witch could exist for a longer time without 
some visible communication with her familiar spirits. In 
these trials, the malignant vigilance of the persecuting 
watchers was seldom disappointed in detecting some 
symptom which they chose to consider a sign of guilt ; and 
even when this did not occur, the life of the accused was 
generally endangered by the inhuman violence with which 
the tests were applied. 



ITS ATJTKEjS'TICITY akd ckedibility. 



259 



But the ordeal, absurd, cruel, and partial as it was, was 
only used in eases of the barest suspicion, and where no 
pretence of testimony could be alleged. The slightest 
shadow of evidence, or of what the prejudiced demonologist 
chose to consider evidence, was enough to send the cul- 
prit to the stake without hope or respite. The Continental 
Jurists openly laid down the rule, that persons of noto- 
riously bad character, although not to be belieyed upon 
their oaths on the ordinary occasions of dispute that might 
arise between man and man, were to be believed if they 
swore that any person had bewitched them. James I. 
of England confirmed their opinion and improved upon it, 
by adding that the evidence of children, not old enough to 
understand the nature of an oath, ought also to be re- 
ceived. And, indeed, it was well for the \ictims when 
these proofs were of a kind which, in the opinion of their 
judge, justified their condemnation to a speedy death ; for 
any contradiction or uncertainty in the evidence was con- 
sidered a ground not for acquittal, but for extorting a con- 
fession from the accused party, by the unrelenting use of 
the severest torture. 

The evidence for the defence was weighed in a very dif- 
ferent balance. The monstrous supposition that an ugly 
woman could be a good Christian, or that a convicted per- 
jurer would bring a false accusation of witchcraft, required 
to be supported by such proofs as scarcely any human 
testimony could furnish. Bodinus, a learned demonologist 
of the seventeenth century, has declared that an acquittal 
for sorcery could never be justified, unless the innocence 
of the accused was clearer than the proof of the sin's 
existence. How a negative — and such a negative — could 
be established in the triumphant manner — how a friendless 
vagrant was to prove that, during a life of thirty, forty, or 
fifty years, he had neve?' attended a witch Sabbath, never 
soured milk, or raised tempests, or never danced at mid- 
night on a broomstick at the Brocken — the sage magistrate 
has omitted to specify. But it is certain that his rule, 
sweeping as it is, is far too limited to justify all the con- 
demnations which took place ; for proofs of alibi, supported 
by the clearest testimony of the senses, were frequently 



260 



EXODUS : 



set aside, on the gratuitous supposition tliat the -witnesses 
had been deceived by a diabolical illusion ; and women 
were burnt alive for having been present at the nightly 
revels of Do?ndaniel or Blochula, though their husbands 
swore that they had never quitted their beds during the 
nights in question. There is, in short, little or no exaggera- 
tion in affirming that every imputation of sorcery raised 
a presumption of guilt against the culprit, and that very 
nearly approaching to what the law of England terms a 
presumption absolute. It was a presumption which a mere 
conjecture was sufficient to establish, and which, though 
nominally liable to be disproved, was in practice altogether 
insuperable. The pretended crime of witchcraft has been 
recognised and punished, from the earliest ages among the 
nations of "Western Europe ; though it was not until a 
comparatively modern period, that the superstition assumed 
its most absurd and malignant shape. Its most ancient 
victims were in general persons who had provoked sus- 
picion by pretending to possess, or attempting to exercise 
forbidden knowledge. Such was the well-known case of 
Eleanor Cobham, Duchess of Gloucester, who was con- 
demned to perpetual imprisonment in the Isle of Man, for 
attempting the life of Henry YI., by means of a sym- 
pathetic waxen image. Such was that of the Marechal 
de Eetz, a Erench nobleman of high rank and distinguished 
military reputation, who was publicly executed for sorcery 
in the fifteenth century, although, if the stories told of his 
crimes have any truth, he might well have dispensed with 
diabolical assistance in tormenting mankind. And such, 
in some measure, was the death of the heroic Maid of 
Orleans, whose delusions, innocent and patriotic as they 
were, were of a kind which no doubt excited sincere dis- 
trust and abhorrence among her superstitious enemies. 
Early in the fifteenth century, a general belief began to 
spread through Europe, that the crime of sorcery was 
fearfully on the increase. This delusion originated in the 
gross superstition and ignorance, resulting from many cen- 
turies of monkish domination over the popular mind, pro- 
bably powerfully assisted by the strange pretensions of the 
Alchymists, which had long attracted the unfavourable 



ITS AriHE^'TICITT ASB CEEDIBILITX. 261 

notice of tte Clmrcli, and which were just at this time 
attaining their highest pitch of extrayagance. The con- 
tagion of fear spread rapidly and fatally. In 1459 took pla^e 
the celebrated trials and executions for witchcraft at Arras ; 
the earliest instance, upon a large scale, in which innocent 
persons were put to death for that crime without any- 
apparent object or provocation. The horrible example was 
eagerly followed throughout France, G-ermany, and Swit- 
zerland ; and a few years later, a superstition, peculiarly- 
proper to Biblical Christianity, was solemnly sanctioned, 
by the Supreme Pontiff of the Christian Church. In 1488,, 
Innocent YIII. gave the signal for one of the most fatal 
and wicked persecutions that ever disgraced mankind ; by 
issuing a bull, in which he summoned all good Christians 
to the rescue of the Church from the open assaults of 
Satan and his mortal allies. His exhortations were repeated 
and renewed by several of his successors ; and particularly 
by the pious and infamous Alexander VI. Then arose 
throughout Europe that strange and fearful monomania, 
which has so often seemed to impart a mysterious fascina- 
tion to crimes of a new and shocking character. It was 
fortunate for mankind that the crime of sorcery, being 
morally and physically impossible, could not become com- 
mon ; or the world would really have become, what a 
terrified Demonologist called it, " a large madhouse for 
witches and devils to play their antics in." But religious 
teaching did its best; everything that could be done 
under such discouraging circumstances was done most 
zealously and perseveringly, both by vdtches and witch 
destroyers. The more enthusiastic sorcerers scrupulously 
performed all the approved ceremonies for raising the 
Devil, and generally finished by becoming convinced that 
their object had been fully attained. The more artful and 
incredulous satisfied themselves with terrifying and rob- 
bing their neighbours, by the help of false pretensions 
to witchcraft. On the other hand, hypochondriac squires, 
terrified clowns, hysterical girls, and mischievous chidi^en, 
united in ascribing their sufferings and mishaps to enchant- 
ment ; and usually fixed at random upon the nearest old 
woman as their tormentor. These accusations were so 



262 



EXODUS : 



readily heard, and so unsparingly acted upon by the legal 
authorities, that the number of executions shocked and 
startled even the thoughtless and excited mob. The poorer 
classes began to look forward with natural alarm to the 
time when age and deformity might qualify themselves for 
the fate which they daily saw^ overtaking their neighbours, 
and, in many places, the inquisitors of the law were com- 
pelled by popular violence to abandon their researches. 
But Churchmen and kings felt no such apprehension, and 
the fury of the persecution became daily more unsparing. 

For nearly two hundred years after the bull of Innocent, 
the mania continued with scarcely any symptoms of abate- 
ment. Throughout the sixteenth century it was chiefly 
confined to Prance and Germany, in which countries the 
number of its victims must be reckoned by hundreds of 
thousands. Their total amount, indeed, can only be calcu- 
lated from those which remain on record ; but some idea of 
its magnitude may be formed from the fact that many dis- 
tricts and large towns burnt two, three, and four hundred 
witches every year ; and that in some the annual executions 
destroyed nearly one per cent, of the whole population ! 
The accusations were of the usual kind, except in the south 
of France, where the crime of lycanthrop^, which consisted 
in self-transformation into a wolf, or, as such enchanted 
animals were called, a loiip-garou, was believed to be very 
prevalent. The Reformation, which swept away so many 
superstitions, left this, the most odious of all, in full 
activity. The Churchmen of England, the Lutherans of 
Germany, the Calvinists of Geneva, Scotland, and New 
England, rivalled the most bigoted Roman Catholics in 
their severities. Indeed, the Calvinists, though the most 
opposite of all to the Church of Rome, were in this respect 
perhaps the most implicit imitators of her delusions. 

The contagion was late in making its appearance in 
Great Britain, though its presence, when once it became 
general, was not less destructive than in other countries. 
It was not until 1562 that the English Legislature dis- 
graced themselves by formally recognising the practice of 
magic as felony. After this time, however, the panic 
gradually increased; and towards the end of Elizabeth's 



ITS ArTHENTICITT ASD CEEDIBILITT. 263 



reign the spread of witchcraft had become a favourite sub- 
ject of lamentation and warning with the Court preachers. 
At length, in 1593, occurred the well-known and dis- 
graceful tragedy of the witches of "Warbois, which ended in 
the public murder of a whole family, upon no better evi- 
dence than the ravings of a delirious girl. Still this was for 
some time almost a solitary instance. But the pestilence 
broke out afresh upon the accession of James I. That vain 
and worthless pedant had always looked upon witchcraft 
with peculiar horror, and had, moreover, been greatly 
delighted by the fatal flattery which asserted that he was 
the most dreaded enemy of their fraternity. A Scottish 
Act of Parliament for the suppression of sorcery had been 
passed in 1563, but during the reign of Queen Mary the 
executions under it, though more frequent than in England, 
were comparatively few. James, however, speedily increased 
them to four hundred annually, a number more than 
quadruple their previous amount, though not greater than 
was furnished by many single to^Tis on the Continent. He 
presided at the famous trial of Euphemia Macalzean and 
her accomplices in 1591, a trial which terminated in the 
execution of thirty persons at once, many of them with cir- 
cumstances of unusual and shocking barbarity. He also 
signalised himself by publishing a treatise on demonology, 
in which he maintained the most puerile superstitions of 
the witch-finders, and openly accused Reginald Scott of 
sadducism for denying the possibility of the crime. 

Accordingly, in 1604, the very year after the accession of 
James to the English throne, a new act was passed for the 
detection and punishment of sorcerers ; and from this time 
the persecution may be said to have fully commenced. 
During the seventeenth century, 40,000 persons are said 
to have been put to death for witchcraft in England alone ! 
In Scotland the number was probably, in proportion to the 
population, much greater ; for it is certain that even in the 
last forty years of the sixteenth century the executions 
were not fewer than 17,000. In 1634 the madness may be 
said to have reached its highest pitch. In that year 
occurred the celebrated case^ of the Lancashire witches, in 
which eight innocent persons were deprived of their lives 



264 



EXODUS : 



by the incoherent falsehoods of a mischievous urchin. The 
civil war, far from suspending the persecution, seems, if 
possible, to have redoubled it ; for the English Puritans and 
Scottish Covenanters were, like all of their religious persua- 
sion, full of love and charity, and most rigorous and un- 
scrupulous in exterminating sorcery. Jn 1644 and 1645 
the infamous Matthew Hopkins was able to earn a comfort- 
able subsistence by the profession of witch-finder, which he 
exercised, not, indeed, without occasional suspicion, but 
still with general success. And even twenty years later, 
the delusion was still sanctioned by the most venerable 
name of the English law; for it was in 1664 that the 
excellent Sir Matthew Hale, after a trial conducted with 
Ms usual patience and impartiality, though not perhaps 
^th his usual good sense, condemned two women to 
death as witches, both of whom were executed accordingly. 

At length, however, soon after the middle of the seven- 
teenth century, the superstition began to show signs of de- 
cline. In some countries its fall was hastened by the 
belief that the powers of darkness had used the general 
panic as a means of destroying the innocent, and that the 
witch-finders were either witches themselves, or subject to 
^ diabolical delusion. The conjecture excited general atten- 
tion; for the most zealous demonologist could not deny 
that Satan would have found, in such a deception, a far 
easier and more eff'ectual means of tormenting mankind, 
than in the petty mischief usually ascribed to him. This 
fortunate counter-delusion produced a great eff'ect in many 
parts of Grermany, and also in New England — in which 
colony the mania broke out with sudden violence about the 
year 1670, and, after costing nineteen lives, as suddenly 
disappeared. 

In 1669 seventy persons were put to death at a small village 
of Dalecarlia, in Sweden, upon the evidence of some insane 
or malicious children : but, fortunately, the contagion did 
not spread any further in that country. And so late as 1697 
five persons were executed together at Glasgow, upon the 
evidence of a sick girl, aged eleven ! But these were the 
expiring efiects of the delusion. In 1680, Erance set the 
example to Europe of its final and absolute suppression. In 



ITS AlTHEXTICTTT ±sd ceedieilitt. 



265 



that year, Louis XIV. issued a proclamation prohibiting 
all future prosecutions for witchcraft ; and directing that 
even those who might profess the art should only be. 
punished as impostors. A solemn remonstrance by the- 
Parliament of Eouen was T\isely disregarded; and the^ 
benefits of the step were speedy and conspicuous. The 
good example was followed, though less readily than it- 
ought to have been, by other nations. In Germany the 
punishment of death had been already disused, and even 
that of imprisonment was dailybecoming more rare. In Eng- 
land and Scotland the exertions of enlightened and humane 
judges, among whom Chief Justices Holt and Dundas of 
Arniston are honourably conspicuous, generally succeeded 
in draT\ing a verdict of not guilty from the jury, or a pardon 
from the Crown. At length the long list of murders was 
brought to its close in both countries. In the former, the 
last execution was at Huntingdon, in 1716 ; in the latter^, 
at Dornoch, in Sutherlandshire, six years later. Two or three 
instances of popular violence against suspected witchery met- 
with just and exemplary punishment ; andin 1736, the statute 
of James I. was solemnly repealed throughout Great Britain. 
One solitary crime more was committed at Wurzburg, in 
Bavaria — a town which had early and long been infamous 
for the cruelty of its witch-finding magistrates. In 1749 
— when the subject was almost forgotten everywhere else — 
a young woman, named 3Iaria Sanger, was, to the horror of 
all Europe, burnt alive in that town, on a charge of having 
bewitched the nuns of a neighbouring convent. This was 
the last execution for witchcraft which ever took place in 
a civiHsed country. Tet even to day, and even in England, 
remnants of the vulgar superstition may be traced out 
amongst the uneducated; and although civilisation has 
robbed religion of the power to bum the body, it has not 
yet entirely rescued the child from the liability to those 
early Bible teachings which leave their disastrous impress 
to taint maturer thinkings. 

Chap, xxii., v. 20, He that sacrificeth unto god, save 
unto the Lord only, he shall be utterly destroyed." It should 
really be read, " He that sacrificeth to the ALEIM, except 
only to JEUE, shall be destroyed." And v. 28, "Thou 



266 



EXODirS : 



shalt not revile the Grods (Aleim)." And chap, xxiii., v. 13. 
Who and what are these gods, or Aleim, and why these 
commands ? According to its best advocates, the sole end 
of this Mosaic dispensation is the worship of one Grod, yet 
here are other gods referred to. If I sacrifice to them, I 
hazard destruction, and if I revile them, I shall probably 
fare no better. Josephus says, " Let no one blaspheme 
those Grods which other cities esteem such."* 

The words in v. 20 forbid any sacrifice to the ALEIM, 
except to JEUE (Jehovah), who is, therefore, here regarded 
as one of the Aleim. Who were the others ? The prohi- 
bition in Exodus, chap, xx., v. 3, read with the verses above 
quoted, would apparently make the whole of the Aleim, 
except Jeue, heathen deities ; but there are instances in 
which another name than that of Jehovah is given to a Grod 
of the Jews. Eor example, the names compounded with 

AL, such as AL SheDI, Almighty God, \vbx^ b^ 

AL OLIUJ^T, the most High Grod, &c., and we find one 
U']^D nb^ ALE MOZIM, the Grod of fortTesses, who may 
either be a Jewish or a heathen Grod. We give here a few 
of the names of heathen deities found in the Bible ; and 
shall deal with others as we reach them in order. 

BOL t Baal, " the ruler." Under this name, which 
occurs very often in the Bible, several nations worshipped 
the Solar fire as the active ruling producing principle of 
nature. Sanchoniathon says, " This god the Phoenicians 
thought to be the only Lord of Heaven, calling him Beel- 
samen, which in their language is Lord of Heaven." Grod 
was called Bal in the Punic tongue. The name Hannibal, 
famous amongst the Carthaginians, signifies " Grod be 
gracious to me." Baal, says Etheridge, is sometimes used 
not only for the sun, but also for the planet Jupiter, and is 
then joined with Gad the designation of that star in 
the oriental astronomy. So, too, in the Zabian Mythology, 
Jupiter takes the name of Bel. J 

Colenso in his translation and abridgment from "Movers 



* Antiquities, book 4, chap, viii., J 10. See also, p. 220. 

t Parkhurst's Lexicon, p. 74. 

t Targums on the Pentateuch, p. 21. 



ITS AIITHENTICITT AND CEEDIEILITX. 



267 



Phonizie " shows how this word Bel in various forms, as Bel 
Mithra, Bel Saturn, and Zeus Belus, is identified with the 
sun, the light-giver, the life-giver.* 

G-esenius says that Baal was the domestic and principal 
deity of the Tyrians, and was worshipped together with 
Astarte or Ashtaroth by the Hebrews (see Judges, chap, ii., 
V. 13, and chap, x., v, 6); Bel being the sun, and Astaroth 
the moon.f Baal is said to have been represented by a bull, 
and Astaroth as a female with a bull's head. 

Ili^d i^^^lBOL POIJE,Baal Peer (Numbers, chap, xxv., v. 
3). The word Pour, according to Parkhurst, means " open," 
as in the sense of an open-mouthed beast of prey, and 
it is alleged that this name was used because of the gaping 
mouth of the idol, into which the victims were thrust. J 
Professor Bresslau m his Lexicon gives, however, a very 
different meaning, treating the word as signifying " un- 
covering of the nakedness," and he identifies the worship 
of Baal Peor with that class of idolatry, by women, of the 
productive organs common to many of the old religions. § 
The Eeverend Thomas Maurice, v/ho evidently takes this 
view, quotes Bishop Cumberland in favour of the opinion 
that the worship of Baal Peor and of Priapus is of one and 
the same character. [] Selig Newman corroborates by his 
translation of the word POUE the opinion here given. 
Simonis also corroborates this view,*j[ the Lexicons of 
Newman and Simonis give to the word POUE as here used 
a speciality of signification which can only apply to the 
Priapian rites. In the index to the Breeches Bible of 1589, 
the same explana^tion is given. Cahen couples Baal Peor 
with Belphegor. 

Etheridge says, " the Eabbins give an obscene meaning 
to the name Peor, but others, as Gresenius, derive it from an 



* Colenso on Pentateuch, part v., p. 315. 

t Gesenius Lexicon, p. 131; Parkhurst Lexicon, p. 668; Newman's 
Lexicon, p. 513. 

t Parkliurst, p. 586— -Gesenius, p. 635. 
§ Bresslau's Lexicon, p. 482. 

II Indian Antiquities, vol. ii., p. 266, and Keightley's Mythology, 
p. 208— Newman's Lexicon, p. 535. 
% Eichorn's Simonis, p, 1308. 



268 



EXGDTJS : 



old verb, still retained in the EtHopic, signifying ' to serve/ 
or * worship.' " 

ninr BOL Z(?BUB, Beelzebub, Lord of the Flies* 
This name does not occur often in the Bible (see 1 Kings, 
chap, i., vv. 2 and 3 ; Matthew, chap, x., v. 25 ; and Luke, 
chap, xi., V. 15, &c.) ; and Bresslau translates it, " The Baal 
who kills flies — i.e., the Deity protecting from vermin." 
Parkhurst, referring to Baal Zebub as one of the Aleim 
of the Philistines, says, that he appears to have been one 
of their medical idols. The Septuagint render Baal Zebub 
as " Baal the fly." 

1!pd MeLeK, Molok, King — (Leviticus, chap, xviii., v. 
21.) According to the Habbins, the statue of Molok 
was of brass, with a human form, but the head of an ox ; 
it was hollow within, and heated from below, and the chil- 
dren to be sacrificed were cast into its arms. Etheridge 
says, "Erom the similarity of meaning with that of Baal, 
* a sovereign ' or ' lord,' Molok is regarded as another 
epithet for the same deity — the ruler of existence ; but as 
manifesting his dominion in the destruction of life, a phase 
of character opposite to that of Baal, the sovereign pro- 
ducer. Hence the worship of Molok was solemnised with 
fatal rites. The parent surrendered the life of his ofl"- 
spring and burned his own child as a holocaust." Park- 
hurst regards this as only another phase of sun-worship. 
The name Melek forms part of Melchizedek, the king who 
was without father or mother, without beginning or end. 
If the quotations from Diodorus are reliable, there seems 
to have been a striking likeness between the sacrifices 
offered to Saturn and to Molok. Adrammelech (the glorious 
Melech) and Annamelech (the cloud Melech) — 2 Kings, 
chap, xvii., v. 31 — are apparently only slightly varying 
names for the same deity. 

U^IDlDjKeMIJSh. Chemosh. Parkhurst's guesses as to the 
meaning of this word do not much aid us. Etheridge says 
the symbol of Chemosh was a black star. Gesenius says 
it was a black stone. Cahen says that you have nothing 
but conjectures as to this deity or the mea ning of his nam e. 

* Leo's Gesenius, p. 188— Tregelle's Gesenius, p. 131— Bresslau, p. 
ITO—Parkhurst, p. 169. 



ITS ArTHEXTICITX AST) CEEDIBILITY. 



269 



Cliap, xxiii., v. 5. — "If thou see the ass. of him that 
hateth thee lying under his burden, and wouldest forbear 
to help him ; thou shalt surely help with him." The Douay 
has after burden, " thou shalt not pass by, but shall lift up 
with him." Kaliseh reads, " forbear to leave it to it ; thou 
shalt leave it only with him." Cahen has, ''gourde toi de 
V abandonner a luimeme, ahandonne-toi avec lui.^^ Luther 
says, " take care ; leave it not, but leave willingly thine own 
for his sake." Michaelis, " so shalt thou not go by and 
him for his master leave helpless, but thou shalt take hold 
and not leave him more than thine own." There appears 
to be considerable difB.culty as to a Hebrew word, 11^, 
OZeB, which occurs three times in the passage referred to, 
and the meaning of which is disputed. How satisfactory 
to the true believer to know that Grod has revealed his vnR 
in a language which the rabbis of his own chosen race 
cannot agree in translating, even in apparently some of the 
most simple phrases. 

Verse 15. — "And none shall appear before me empty." 
The verses 14 and 15 are repeated almost literally in Deut. 
c. xvi., V. 16. The injunction that none of the worshippers 
are to come empty handed is worth attention to those who still 
regard the Books as of divine origin. Every worshipper 
is required to bring with him some gift with which to pro- 
pitiate the infinite and immutable Deity. 

Verse 23. — " Eor mine Ang-el shall go before thee, and 
bring thee in unto the Amori'tes, and the Hittites, and the 
Perizzites, and the Canaanites, the Hivites, and the Jebu- 
sites : and I will cut them off." After the Canaanites, the 
Septuagint adds the Grergashites." 

Verse 28. — " And I will send hornets before thee, which 
shall driveout the Hivite,the Canaanite,and the Hittite,from 
before thee." The Septuagint puts "the Amorites " in 
before the others—" Hornets." The Hebrew word is 
TO^":^, TzEOE, but Gresenius regards the phrase as figura- 
tive. 

Verse 29. — " I will not drive them out from before thee 
in one year ; lest the land become desolate, and the beast 
of the field multiply against thee." Bishop Colenso, who 
shows that, if the Israelites had been as numerous as re- 



270 



presented in the Pentateuch, they would have peopled 
Canaan as thickly as were the English counties of Nor- 
folk j Essex, and Suffolk in 1851, asks, are these three 
Eastern Counties in any danger of lying desolate with the 
beasts multiplying against the inhabitants.* 

Verse 31. — The Septuagint, instead of leaving the river 
as in our version, names it the great river Euphrates — 
" Thou shalt drive them out," The Douay, Vulgate, Septua- 
gint, and Cahen agree in saying, " I will drive them out." 
This promise of the angel going before the Jews to strike 
fear into the Philistines and Canaanites, and to drive them 
out, does not appear to have been entirely verified ; nor is 
it true that the Lord kept all sickness away from the Jews, 
or that the other promises in this chapter were all fulfilled. 
Chap, xxiv., vv. 9 to 14. — The narrative here given is in 
efiect contradicted in chap, xxxiii., v. 20, John, chap, i., v. 
18, 1st Epistle of John, chap, iv., v. 12, 1st Epistle to 
Timothy, chap, i., v. 17, Colossians, chap, i., v. 15. It 
cannot be urged that this is figurative, because the evident 
intention is to give a literal account of seventy -four persons 
going up to see God. To what place they went up is not 
clear ; it was not upon the mount, or, at any rate, but a 
short distance on it, for Moses and Joshua left them, and 
went up from them into the mount. 

Verse 1. — " And he said." The Eabbis have made great 
conjectures as to who it was said what follows. It is urged 
that it cannot mean " and Grod said," because the words 
used refer to God as a third person. The Samaritan version 
adds here, and in v. 9, after Nadab and Abihu, the names 
Eleazar and Ithamar, 

Verse 4.—" Pillars." The Douay has " titles." Cahen 
has " steles." 

Verse 5. — "Young men." ^li^i NOEL It is stated in 
the Talmud that the editors of the Pentateuch found in the 
temple three manuscripts ; two of which had this word, and 
one of which had ^toiio);! ZOTUTI, and that the Eabinical 
editors adopted the reading of the two, destroying the 
third, t 

* Pentateuch, Part I., p, 83. 

t Cahen. Exode, p. 101— Cbajim's Introduction; p, IG. 



ITS AITTHEKTICITT AND CHEDIBILITT. 



271 



Verse 7.—" Book of the Covenant.'* n^inrr ISD SePh^E 
EBeEITh. What was this book so read ? What has 
become of it ? The Eabbis have disputed on these points 
but have left us no information. It clearly must have been 
a book separate from the Pentateuch and anterior to it. 
Was it G-od's revelation ? And if yes, how does its loss 
affect the Bible believer? 

Verse 9. — Joshua is not named here, and unless he is 
included amongst the seventy elders, which, from v. 14, 
does not seem probable, it is difficult to understand why he 
is omitted, as it is clear, from the remainder of the chapter, 
that he must have been with Moses. 

In the Hindoo mythology we find several instances of 
gods, under whose feet paved work may be seen ; but these 
gods are — according to Christians — neither omnipotent, 
infinite, nor omniscient. All Christians assert that the 
extraordinary histories of Indian deities are fabulous, and 
when they gaze on the curious pictures of various gods, 
given in the " Asiatic Eesearches," Maurice's " Indian 
Antiquities," and other kindred works, they feel con- 
vinced of the superiority of their own system, which 
is free from such ridiculous absurdities. But how do 
these enlightened Christians deal in their own minds 
with this chapter, which tells them that their invisible " 
Grod was seen by seventy-four men in a fiery mount, with, 
as it were, a paved work under his feet ? These seventy- 
four, though no man can see God and live, being so little 
affected by the immediate presence of the infinite that 
" they saw Grod and did eat and drink." 

Dr. John Pye Smith, never at a loss, easily reconciles 
these apparent discrepancies by asserting that they 
refer to the different persons of the Father and the Messiah, 
but this is only confusion worse confounded," for it is 
quite clear that it was not the Messiah who is referred to, 
either here or in the many other texts speaking of the 
appearance of the Lord to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob; it 
is also clear from the ^ew Testament that Jesus was not 
invisible ; so we are left without aid from the Eeverend 
Doctor's comment, and must still wonder how an " invisible" 
God ever appeared to anybody. 



272 



EXODTJS : 



In a debate held between tbe writer and the Rev. Dr. 

Baylee, president of St. Aidan's College, Birkenhead, the 
following reference was made to this chapter : — 

I." Do you believe, according to 1st Timothy, chap, i., 
V. 37, that G-odis invisible ; and according to chap, vi., v. 16, 
that no man hath seen or can see Grod ; and according to 
1st John, chap, iv., v. 12, that no man hath seen God at any 
time ? 

Dr. B. I do. 

"I." Do you also believe, according to Exodus, chap, 
xxiv., V. 10, &c., that seventy-four persons all saw God at 
one tim^e ? 

Dr. B. I do. 

" I.'* Am I to understand that you believe that God 
has not been, and cannot be, seen, and that he has been 
seen. Do you thus believe ? 

Dr. B. I do. 

"I." Is not that a contradiction ? 
Dr. B. It is not. 

Comment on this would be worse than useless. 

Chap. XXV., V. Ij &c. — The directions which follow are of 
a most extraordinary character when put into the mouth of 
an infinite Deity. To suppose the creator of the universe 
directing the manufactory of a dwelling for himself (v. 8) ; 
or to picture the Mighty Euler of all existence ordering 
the fashion of a golden chair in which he shall sit (vv. 19 and 
22), requires, at least, the exercise of great faith, and the 
utter disuse of all reason. It is somewhat embarrassing — 
even for a devout believer — to recollect the words of the 
injunction against graven images, &c., contained in v. 4 of 
chap. XX., and to apply it in connection with the directions 
for sculptural adornments of the tabernacle. The Douay 
version has in this chapter a number of trifling differences 
of translation. In v. 1, it has "first fruits" in lieu of 
" offerings in v. 4, " violet " instead of " blue," audit says 
the scarlet is to be " twice dyed ;" in v. 5, it has " violet 
skins " in lieu of" badgers' skins." Cahen call this, skins 
of the Tehaschime, and says that the meaning of the expres- 
sion is unknown. The Talmud teaches that this was the 
skin of a rare beast, something like a leopard, but which 



ITS AUTHENTICITY AND CBEDIBILITT. 



273 



existed only during the construction of the temple. In v. 
8 the Douay has, "the rational" in lieu of "the breast- 
plate." In V. 18, in lieu of "mercy seat," it has " oracle 
and the same in v. 20. In v. 25, instead of " a border of an 
hand brea^dth," it has " to the ledge itself a polished crown, 
four inches high." 

Verse 10. — Sacred arts have been used amongst many 
ancient people — the G-reeks, Eomans, Etruscans, Egyptians, 
&c. ; and some of them very similar in form to that here 
provided. =^ Did God adopt the Pagan pattern, or was he 
unaware of it ? 

In the reference to the cherubims in v. 18, no size is 
specified. They are spoken of as if they were objects 
familiar to Moses. Josephus, speaking of these cherubims, 
says, " They are flying creatures, but their form is not like 
to any of the creatures which men have seen, though 
Moses said that he had seen such beings near the throne 
of God." 

Verse 40. — -" And look that thou make them after their 
pattern, which was shewed thee in the mount." "When 
was this pattern shown ? Was it a pattern made by God 
and preserved in heaven ? Some of the Talmudical com- 
mentators declare that Moses did see the model of the 
tabernacle during his stay on the mountain ; and that, in 
fact, the Jewish Sanctuary is really an imitation of a similar, 
though infinitely more grand, structure in heaven, f 

The twenty-sixth chapter one would regard as a most 
trivial description, utterly unimportant to us, but as we find 
the whole of it repeated only ten chapters further in the 
same book, we are bound to examine it in order to dis- 
cover if it be possible the great moral lesson hidden by the 
curtains, rings, boards, bars, and vails, which are so amply 
delineated. Kalisch translates the word ptl;^D MeShK<?]Sr 
(in our version called tabernacle) as " habitation." The 
tabernacle was to be the habitation of the God of the 
Jews. 

Verse 1. — "Moreover thou shalt make the tabernacle 
with ten curtain s of fine twined linen, and blue, and purple, 

* Kalisch, Exodus, p. 491. 
t Kalisch, Exodus, p. 496. 



274 



EXODTJS : 



and scarlet : with chernbims of cunning work shalt thou 
make them." "What does the last clause of this verse 
mean? The Douay, following the Latin Vulgate, has, 
" And thou shalt make the tabernacle in this manner : thou 
shalt make ten curtains of fine twisted linen, and violet and 

Surple and scarlet twice dyed, diversified with embroidery." 
he Douay omits the cherubims, but the fair explanation 
seems to be that these lost birds, beasts, or monsters, were 
in addition to being placed as images on the ark, to be 
also embroidered, by way of ornamentation, to the curtains 
of the tabernacle. 

Verse 29. — Cahen says, " Suppose that the interior was 
covered with gold of only dbmillimetre of thickness, it would 
have required more than 3,600 kilogrammes of gold ; or 
m m(mey, value about 14,000,000 of francs ; a large sum 
this for a tribe of wanderers. 

Verse 31. — There is here the same strange diff*erence 
between our version and the Vulgate and the Douay — the 
latter reading, " wrought with embroidered work and 
goodly variety," in lieu of "with cherubims shall it be 
made." 

Verse 35. — The Samaritan version inserts here the first 
ten verses of chap. xxx. There are numerous variations 
between the various translations of this chapter, but none 
of animportant character. Josephusgivesthefollowing quaint 
explanation as to the tabernacle and its accessories: — " Now,* 
here one may wonder at the ill-will which men bear to us, 
and which they profess to bear on account of our despising 
that deity which they pretend to honour ; for if any one do 
but consider the fabric of the tabernacle, and take a view 
of the garments of the high priest, and of those vessels 
which we make use of in our sacred ministration, he will 
find that our legislator was a divine man, and that we are 
unjustly reproached by others : for if any one do without 
prejudice, and with judgment, look upon these things, he 
will find they were every one made in way of imitation and 
representation of the universe. When Moses distinguished 
the tabernacle into three parts, and allowed two of them 
to the priests, as a place accessible and common, he denoted 
♦ Antiquities, Book 3, ctiap. vii., f 7. 



ITS ArTHEXIICITY A>D CEEDIBIEITY. 



275 



the land and tlie sea, these being of general access to all ; 
but lie set apart the third division for Grod, because heaven 
is inaccessible to men. And when he ordered twelve 
loaves to be set on the table, he denoted the year, as dis- 
tinguished into so manj months. By branching out the 
candlestick into seventy parts, he secretly intimated the 
Decani, or seventy divisions of the planets ; and as to the 
seven lamps upon the candlesticks, they referred to the 
course of the planets, of which that is the number. The 
vails, too, which were composed of four things, they de- 
clared the four elements ; for the fine linen was proper to 
signify the earth, because the flax grows out of the earth ; 
the purple signified the sea, because that colour is dyed 
by the blood of a sea shell-fish ; the blue is to signify the 
air ; and the scarlet will naturally be an indication of fire. 
Now, the vestment of the high-priest being made of linen, 
signified the earth ; the blue denoted the sky, being like 
lightning in its pomegranates, and in the noise of the bells 
resembling thunder. And for the ephod, it showed that Grod 
had made the universe of four (elements) ; and as for the 
gold interwoven, I suppose it relatedto the splendour by which 
all things are enlightened. He also appointedthe breast-plate 
to be placed in the middle of the ephod, to resemble the 
earth, for that has the very middle place of the world. And 
the girdle which encompassed the high-priest round, signi- 
fied the ocean, for that goes round about and includes the 
universe. Eaeh of the sardonyxes declares to us the sun 
and the moon ; those, I mean, that were in the nature of 
buttons on the high-priest's shoulders. And for the twelve 
stones, whether we understand by them the months, or 
whether we understand the like number of the signs of 
that circle which the Greeks call the Zodiac, we shall not 
be mistaken in their meaning. And for the mitre, which 
was of a blue colour, it seems to me to mean heaven ; for 
how otherwise could the name of G-od be inscribed upon it?" 

Chap, xxviii. — Can anything be more puerile than the 
representation of Deity given here ? The supporter of the 
doctrine that this book is literally true requires us to 
imagine the God of the Universe giving directions for the 
particular description and decorations of cloak, girdle^ 



276 



EXODUS : 



bonnet, and breeches to be worn by a few members of the 
human family dwelling in a narrow district of this our 
earth, which itself sinks into insignificant littleness when 
compared with the solar and astral systems of mighty vast- 
ness in which it figures but as the one grain of sand in 
Sahara's desert, or the solitary drop of water cast upon the 
bosom of the Atlantic. 

Verse 30. — " And thou shalt put in the breastplate of 
judgment the TJrim and the Thummim." The Douay has 
followed precisely the Latin of the Vulgate, " Thou shalt 
. put in the rational of judgment doctrine and truth." 
Kalisch says that almost innumerable conjectures have 
been made as to the TJrim and Thummim, and that the 
subject is one of the most obscure kind. The Jews be- 
lieved that, through the Urim and Thummim, oracular 
replies were made. See Numbers c. xxvii., v. 21 ; 1 Samuel 
c. xxviii., V. 6. Cahen enters very fully into the examina- 
tion of this verse. He says"^ — " It is necessary to remark 
that nowhere in the Hebrew text is there any mention of 
the construction of these objects, nor of their remarkable 
quahties. 'No part of the Bible gives the least information 
concerning them. The Pentateuch, which enters almost 
minutely into the details of the vestments of the priests, 
observes an absolute silence concerning the TJrim and 
Thummim, as though these were commonly known to the 
Israelites, and not requiring description. Indeed, nothing 
is more common among the ancients than consultations by 
oracles in private, as in public affairs : also the Eabbi 
Azaria, the author of ' Maur Oinim ' (the light of the 
eyes) says, ' In the name of the Eabbi Abadia Sephorno 
I have heard these words ; in the breastplate of the High 
Priest there were two names, etc., and the TJrim were 
similar in intention and form to those predictions which 
rendered by the idolatrous priests called oracles among the 
ancients.' These oracles had already ceased during many 
ages when the Chaldean and Grreek translations were com- 
posed, and when Josephus and Philo wrote their works. 
And since their time, profound obscurity has reigned con- 
cerning the form and manner of consultation. "We are, 
* Exode : Notes Supplementaires. 



ITS ATJTHEOTICITT AlH) CHEBIBILITT. 



277 



therefore, reduced to analogies and conjectures concerning 
it, even upon the origin of the words Urim and Thummim. 
Onkelos does not translate them, nor Mendelsohn. Abar- 
banel relates, according to a commentator, that Urim and 
Thummim did not give the gift of prophecy, but that they 
gave the means of answering well to questions having fop 
object the public needs." 

Ben Ouziel paraphrases Aurim by that which enlightens 
from Aur gold, light ; and as to Themim D"'Dn, he says, 
that which makes jperfect, from Din Thum, perfection ; which 
would be, for TJrim and Thummin, light and perfection, as 
some translate. The Septuagint has translated in the 
same sense. These translations have given rise to the 
opinion put forth by Spencer, that Urim and Thummim 
were small speaking statues, as the D^'Sin Teraphim or 
D''£3"iD Seraphim, Serapis of the Egyptians. There are 
quoted in support of this conjecture two passages from 
ancient authors — the one of Diodorus Siculus, and the other 
of Elian. The first, speaking of the president of the Egyptian 
tribunals, expresses himself thus — " He wore round the 
neck, suspended by a gold chain, a small figure of precious 
stones, which they called the truth. The debates opened 
when the president placed in front of himself the image of 
truth." (Lib. i., c. xxxi.) The second, after saying that 
the judges in Egypt were priests, adds — The most aged 
among them was their chief and supreme judge. It was 
required that he should be the justest and most sincere of 
man ; he wore round the neck an image of Sapphire ; this 
image was called the truths (Varian. Hist., lib. xiv., c. 
34.) The Prophet Hosea expressly joins the ephod to the 
teraphim : — " There is neither ephod nor teraphim." Ch. 
iii., V. 4. "We know that Micah, wishing to improve the 
profession of Cohen, priest, provided himself with ephod 
and teraphim. (Judges, c. xvii., w. 3, 5, and c. xviii., 
V. 17.) Some pretend that the twelve precious stones of 
the breastplate formed the Urim and Thummim. Such is 
firstly the opinion of Josephus — " By means of the twelve 
precious stones, he says, which the Pontiff wore on the 
breast in the breastplate, G-od predicted victory to those 
who went to battle. Then the light from these stones be- 



278 



EXODrs : 



came so brilliant before the army began its marcli, that the 
people remained convinced that they had Grod for an 
auxiliary. Thence also the name Logion (supreme reason) 
given by the G-reeks to this oracle, for nothing could con- 
tradict it." (Ant., lib. iii., c. 8.) A divination by lot 
founded upon the greater or less brilliancy of certain gems, 
is still in use in several countries of India. The Babylon 
and Jerusalem Talmuds are of the same opinion. One reads 
m the first (Jom. c. vii. fol. 73) — " How was it made (the 
answer to the Urim and Thummim) ? Eabbi lo'hanan 
(John) says, they (the letters) came forth ; Eesch Lakisch 
says, they reunited themselves. How? since there was 
not the letter tsadi ^ among them ? Eabbi Schemouel, the 
son of Isaac, says — the names of Abraham, Isaac, and 
Jacob were written. Then the letter Teth ID was still 
wanting ? Master Eabbi A'ha, the son of Jacob, answers 
— the words of ^ tribes of Jeschouroun ' were written there." 
The Talmud of Jerusalem says that a very gentle voice 
made itself heard ; and instead of Jeshuron, it puts Israel. 
According to the Talmud, this oracle was not consulted 
except for public affairs. (Jom. c. vii., fol. 72.) — " The 
priest is not questioned except for the king, the court of 
justice, and the wants of society." It is very probable, 
above all, by the history of Achan (Joshua c. vii.) that the 
answers were drawn by lot. It was in this manner, even 
according to the Talmud, that the distribution of the land 
was made among the tribes. The ephod had perhaps the form 
of a bag, in which were placed the several possible chances ; 
that which was drawn was the decision of Grod. The pos- 
session of the divinatory apparel gave to the sacerdotal 
caste immense power, which it had soon to share legally 
with the seers (the Nobis, inspired orators) ; and illegally 
withsimpleindividuals, such as Micah and the Levites, direct 
descendants of Moses. (Judges c. xviii., v. 31.) Josephus 
says that this oracle ceased about two centuries before the 
destruction of the second temple. (Ant. lib. iii., c. 18.) ^ 

The use of the equivalent to the Urim and Thummim 
amongst the Egyptians is rather a ground for the supposi- 
tion that the Jews borrowed these mystical ornaments from 
the former nation ; for, as the religious Parkhurst admits, 



ITS AUTHENTICITY A.1SD CEEDIBILITT. 



279 



It is by no means credible tbat they should take it from 
the Israelites after the giving of the law."* Gresenius also 
admits, that " The Hebrews seem in this manner to have 
imitated the Egyptians. "f Etheridge says, *^ Connected, 
though to us in some uncertain way, with the breastplate, 
were the Urim and Thummim, the means or instruments 
of decision or judgment, in doubtful matters of importance 
to the public interests of the nation. TJrim is the plural 
form of the noun "^ili*^, AUIi— ^ fire or light ' — and Thummim 
the plural of Dn, TheM — ' fulness or completion, integrity, 
uprightness, truth.' The ordinary rendering of IJrim 
and Thummim is, ' Lights and Perfections.' Onkelos 
merely Aramaizes the terms. The LXX. give them by 
ten delosin kai ten aletJieian, ' manifestation and truth ;' 
the other G-reek versions by Aquila, Symmachus, and 
Theodotion, by tons pJiotismous Tcai tas teleiotetas, * illumin- 
ations and perfections ;' the Syriac by * resplendence and 
completion;' the Samaritan version by ' elucidations and 
certainties;' and the Vulgate by doctrinam etveritatem; 
the Arabic, by ' holiness and truth.' As to the manner 
in which responses were obtained by the Urim and 
Thummim, silente Scripturd nihil pro certo statiiatur. There 
are several conjectures, more or less plausible, but conjec- 
tures only. Ex. gr. : 1. Two tablets representing an affirma- 
tive or a negative, inserted within the folds or pouch of the 
breastplate, and used in the manner of drawing lots. 2. 
That the priest dressed in the ephod stood before the veil, 
and heard the answer pronounced by a voice from mthin. 
3. The verbal answer would be spelled out by the priest, 
as one letter after another became illuminated. 4. The 
wearing of the breastplate had a moral influence on the 
mind of the priest, which predisposed him to receive the 
answer by an inward dictate of the Holy Spirit. 5. The 
Urim and Thummim were identical with the twelve jewels. 
We see in Exodus, chap, xxviii., v. 30, that the Urim and 
Thummim were to be put upon the breastplate ; what was 
put upon it but the jewels ? These were, therefore, the 
Urim and Thummim, and were ordained to make instru* 

^ Parkhurst, Lexicon, p. 40. 
t Tregelles Gesenius, p. 24. 



I 



280 EXODUS: 

mentally the perfect revelation, Thtmmim, by their lights, 
Urim, Now, as the Divine response, nnlike the more 
diffuse oracles given in after-days by the Holy Spirit to the 
prophets, was vouchsafed to the high priest in a simple 
affirmative or negative — yes or no — it is conjectured that 
the affirmative answer might have been given by the in- 
creased refulgence of the jewels ; and the negative, by the 
withholdment of it. On the general subject, compare 
Exodus, chap, xxviii., v. 30 ; Lev., chap, viii., v. 8 ; Exodus, 
XXXV., V. 27 ; Ezek., chap, xxviii., v. 14*; 1 Samuel, chap, 
xxiii., V. 2. And the instances in Num. xxvii., vv. 18 — 31 ; 
Joshua, chap, vii., w. 13 and 21 ; Judges, chap, i., v. 1 ; 
Judges, chap, xx., vv. 18 and 28 ; 1 Samuel, chap, xiv., w. 
40—43 ; 1 Samuel, chap, xxiii., w. 9-12 ; 1 Samuel, chap, 
xxviii., V. 6."* 

Chap. xxix. — At the very time that Grod was thus 
directing that Aaron and his sons should be anointed, and 
while Grod was intimating that he would sanctify Aaron, 
the latter must have been engaged in the manufacture of 
the golden calf. Did Grod know this ? If he did, it is hard 
to understand how he chose an idolater for his priest. If 
otherwise, Grod is not omniscient. The family of Levi, 
who, with Simeon, was so severely spoken against by Jacob, 
seem the most favoured by Jacob's Grod, 

Verse 33. — " And they shall eat those things wherewith 
the atonement was made, to consecrate and to sanctify 
them." The Douay reads, " That it may be an atoning 
sacriiSce, and the hands of the offerers may be sanctified." 
Kalisch remarks that the construction of this verse is most 
embarrassing. 

Verse 36. — The Septuagint's translation differs here in 
some respects from our version, and from the Hebrew 
saying, that the sacrifice is to be made the day of 
the purification. As the Jews were in the desert, 
and as these offerings were to be every day (v. 36) 
day by day (v. 38), and continually (v. 42), one is 
tempted to inquire, with Abeu Ezra, where the Jewish 
wanderers were to find the necessary bullocks, lambs, flour, 
wine, and oilf for the fulfilment of all these sacrifices ? 

* Targums on the Pentateuch, p. 45« 
t Cahen, Exode, p. 140. 



ITS AtTTHEKTICITY A^B CBEDIBIIITT, 281 



Chap. XXX., vv. 1 to 10. — In tlie Samaritan these verses 
are wanting here, having been inserted, chap, xxvi., v. 35. 

Verses 12 and 13.—" When thou takest the sum of the 
children of Israel, after their number, then shall they give 
every man a ransom for his soul unto the Lord, when thou 
numberest them; that there be no plague among them, when 
thou numberest them. This they shall give, every one that 
passeth among them that are numbered, half a shekel, after 
the shekel of the sanctuary: (a shekel is twenty gerahs;) 
an half shekel shall be the offering of the Lord." Cahen 
asks, whether the shekel was a piece of money or a weight ? 
and remarks that the use of the words shekel of the 
sanctuary seems to imply that there was alsp another 
current or profane shekel. Colenso says,^ " "We may first 
notice in passing, that the expression, * shekel of the 
sanctuary,' in the above passage, could hardly have been 
used in this way until there was a sanctuary in existence, 
or, rather, until the sanctuary had been some time in exist- 
ence, and such a phrase had become familiar in the mouths 
of the people. Whereas, here it is put into the mouth of 
Jehovah, speaking to Moses on Mount Sinai, six or seven 
months before the Tabernacle was made. And in Exodus, 
chap, xxxviii., vv. 24, 25, and 26, we have the same phrase 
used again, of the actual contributions of the people 
towards the building of the Sanctuary. The Seventy 
indeed render the Hebrew phrase by to didracJimon to 
agion, ' The sacred shekel.' But this can hardly be the true 
meaning of the original, bptl^l U^lpn, EQ^DeSh BeShQeL, 
and if it were, the difficulty would still remain, to explain 
what the * sacred shekel ' could mean, before any sacred 
system was established. But these words direct that, 
whenever a numbering of the people shall take place, each 
one that is numbered shall pay a ' ransom for his soul ' of 
half a shekel. Now, in Exodus, chap, xxxviii., v. 26, we 
read of such a tribute being paid, ' a bekah for every man 
— that is, half a shekel, after the shekel of the sanctuary — 
for every one that went to be numbered from twenty years 
old and upward,' that is, the atonement money is collected ; 

* Part 1, cliap, vii., in reply to Dr. McCaul's Examination of 
Colenso/* p. 89. 



282 



EXODUS : 



but nothing is there said of any census being taken. On 
the other hand, in Numbers, chap, i., yy. 1 — 46, more than 
six months after the date of the former occasion, we have 
an account of a very formal numbering of the people, the 
result being given for each particular tribe, and the total 
number summed up at the end ; here the census is made, 
but there is no indication of any atonement money being 
paid. The omission in each case might be considered, of 
course, as accidental — it being supposed that, in the first 
instance, the numbering really took place : and, in the 
second, the tribute was paid, though neither circumstance 
is mentioned. But, then, it is surprising that the number 
of adult males should have been ideiiiicaUy iJie savie 
— (603,550) — on tlie first occasion as it icas half a-year 
afterwards. '^^ 

Verse 15. — The words *^when they gave an off*ering 
unto the Lord to make atonement for your souls," are 
totally omitted in the Douay version. 

Verses 22 to 38. — The God of the Jews, who, according 
to Christians, is a God of love and full of mercy and loving 
kindness, here ordains that every man who shall manu- 
facture, give to a sti^anger, or smell a particular kind of 
scented ointment, shall be put to death. Christian Theist, 
you tell me that yours is the '* eternal, immortal, and only 
wise God" {vide 1st Timothy, chap, i., v. 17) — do you in 
truth believe that he would order me to be utterly cut off 
because I might perhaps unconsciously make an ointment 
of a particular odour ? Do you believe if I take a certain 
description of perfumed pomade, and smell thereto," or 
even if I proceed to the rubbing some on the hair of my 
head, ^ that I shall be put to death ? Many defenders of 
the Bible urge that these enactments were only meant for the 
Jews, who seem to have required some strange laws ; if so,, 
it is a pity God has allowed the Book to come to us in its 
present state, as we find it hard to believe that one verse 
or passage is intended only for the Jews, and the following 
one intended for the whole world. 

Chap, xxxi., w. 1-1 and 15. — Moses would hardly have 
been eligible for the '* Society for. Abolition of Capital 
Punishment," if it had been established in hie day. These 



ITS AUTHENTICITY AND CREDIBILITY. 



2H3 



verses must have since become a dead letter, an obso- 
lete statute which, even if the Bible be the expression of 
God's law, Grod does not and man dare not attempt to en- 
force in the present age. But if this verse is a dead letter, 
how much more of the Bible is affected in the same manner ? 
Who is to tell which enactments may be safely disobeyed, 
and which carry with them the terrible penalty specified in 
the text? 

Verse 17. — " He rested and was refreshed." Although 
even the most faithful and pious believer must have great 
difficulty in attempting to satisfy his brain as to that 
stupendous miracle, the creation of the universe out of 
nothing, yet this great difficulty sinks into utter insigni- 
ficance beside the greater one of endeavouring to imagine 
the omnipotent andimmutable Deity resting after his labour, 
and being refreshed hy Jiis rest. 

Verse 18. — The expression "finger of Grod " is evidently 
intended to be understood literally here, but the question 
then arises as to the nature of an infinite spirit without 
body, parts, or passions (vide thirty-nine articles), yet 
having fingers, hands, face, and back parts. Dr. Pye Smith 
says,* on the anthropopatheia of the Scriptures (treatment 
of Grod as if possessing a human shape and nature) — " This 
is very remarkable and very extensive, but it is manifested 
by comparison with many other parts of the Scriptures, 
that the terms employed are terms of condescending com- 
f arisen with the acts and effects of the thus mentioned 
organs of the human body, to convey, especially to un- 
polished men, a conception of those properties and actions 
of Grod, which to our feeble ideas have a resemblance, and 
that they were so understood. Language had not then 
terms for the expression of abstract conceptions." Dr. 
Smith, in instructing the Christian theologian, tells me 
that Grod created man and all the circumstances surround- 
ing him, yet speaks of " human incapacity and infirmity," 
and of " the language of the Scriptures being formed in 
condescension thereto," and, in effect, says that the Bible is 
in Grod's own language, but the language of the Bible is 
imperfect, and not sufficient for the expression of the mes« 



» Fiyst Lines ot Cbristmu Theology, p, 129, 



284i 



EXODTTS : 



sage which God intended the Bible to convey. Dr. Pye 

Smith admits that modern language is more expressive 
than that of the Bible ; but is it not remarkable that the 
prescient Creator should have not foreseen the time when 
the language of his revelation would sink below the level 
of the human capacity ? It is worse than folly to put for- 
ward hypotheses as to God's condescension in using weak 
language ; in reality, not to express, but, in fact, to conceal 
some grand sentiment. The Book itself nowhere suggests 
such an idea, and I ask to what mind (however "un- 
polished " it may be) can the following words convey any 
other conception of the properties and actions of God than 
that of the literal reading ? — 

" And I will take away my hand, and thou shalt see my 
back parts, but my face shall not be seen." Dr. Smith 
says that " metaphysical or philosophical preciseness is not 
in the character of Scriptural composition," yet upon our 
misconception of the true meaning of that composition 
hangs the penalty of eternal torment. 

Chap.xxxii. — During the absence of Moses on the mount 
the J ewish people applied to Aaron to make them Gods to 
go before them, Porgetting that Moses had so recently 
given proofs of his divine legation, they used very disre- 
spectful language, saying, " As for this Moses, the man 
that brought us up out of the land of Egypt, we wot not 
what is become of him." Aaron, who had been specially 
chosen by God to be his priest and prophet, and as to whom 
God was then making special regulations, instead of 
reminding the people of the miracles God had just per- 
formed on their behalf, instead of reproving them for the 
slighting manner in which they had spoken of his brother 
Moses, instead even of appealing to Nadab and Abihu, and 
the seventy elders who had personally seen God so shortly 
before, and who must all have been impressed with the 
awful majesty of the Deity, forgetting or disregarding the 
first and second commandments contained in chapter xx., 
vv. 3, 4, and 5, and that their God is a jealous God, for- 
getting also the repetition contained in v. 23 of the same 
chapter, Aaron (who alone had been nominated to enter 
the holy of holies), without the slightest attempt at remon- 



ITS AUTHENTICITY AND CREDIBILITY. 



285 



strance, asked the people to bring him their golden ear- 
rings, out of which he voluntarily made a molten calf;* and 
the people having said, " These be thy Gods, O Israel, 
which brought thee out of the land of Egypt," Aaron built 
an altar and proclaimed a feast. This calf (says Kalisch) 
was probably in imitation of the Egyptian Apis (Osiris in 
Memphis), or Mnevis (the sun in Heliopolis). 

Verse 6. — "And rose up to play." Cahen observes that 
at the fetes of Apis, after eating the remains of the sacri- 
fices, the people always commenced to dance and play. 
The Grod was very unfortunate. Adam and Eve ate the 
fruit he forbad them to eat, and now his chosen people 
forget and forsake him, and repeatedly doubt and deny his 
power. The miracles performed by Moses and Aaron in 
Egypt — events any one of which should have been suf&cient 
to have struck terror into the Israelites for the remainder 
of their lives — the interview between Grod and the seventy- 
four, only a few days before, were all passed as nothing ; 
and the IsraeKtes, after a few days' absence on the part of 
one of their leaders, seek new Gods, and find the other 
leader, in whose charge they are left, willing to gratify 
their desires. God having permitted all this to happen, 
informed Moses thereof, and then uses this remarkable 
phrase — " Let me alone that my wrath may wax hot against 
them, and that I may consume them, and I will make of 
thee a great nation." Is this the language of an infinite 
and immutable Deity ? 

Verse 10. — The Samaritan version inserts here the words, 
" Jeue was very angry with Aaron to have destroyed him." 
Can God the immutable be imagined in a state of furious 
anger, resolving to destroy his people, and yet, upon the 
persuasion of one of his own creatures, induced to change 
his resolve ? The expostulatory reasoning of Moses 
addressed to God is worthy repetition. 

Verses 11, 12, and 13. — " Lord, why doth thy wrath wax 
hot against thy people, which thou hast brought forth out 

^ Josephus not only omits all this story of the golden calf, but so 
states the absence and return of Moses after forty days and nights on the 
mount, that if the Jewish historian be correct, all this chapter must 
be untrue. 



286 



EXODtTS : 



of the land of Egypt with great power, and with a mighty 

hand ? Wherefore should the Egyptians speak, and say. 
For mischief did he bring them out, to slay them in the 
mountains, and to consume them from the face of the 
earth ? Turn from thy fierce wrath, and repent of this evil 
against thy people. Eemember Abraham, Isaac, and Israel, 
thy servants, to whom thou swarest by thine own self, and 
saidst unto them, I will multiply your seed as the stars of 
heaven ; and all this land that I have spoken of will I give 
unto your seed, and they shall inherit it for ever." And 
this reasoning, which points out to the all-wise Deity that 
if he persisted in his new resolve he would be unable to 
keep his sworn promise to Abraham, and which reminds 
him that it will give an opportunity to the talkative 
Egyptians, is effective. 

Verse 14. — And the Lord repented of the evil which 
he thought to do unto his people." Cahen quotes the 
following from the Berechith Eaba : — " Moses, wishing to 
appease God, said, ' Master of the universe, they have given 
thee a helper, and yet you are angry against them. This 
calf which they have made shall be thy auxiliary. Thou 
shalt make the sun shine, it the moon ; thou the planets, it 
the stars ; thou shalt make the rain fall, it shall make the 
plants grow.' Grod answered, ' Thou art also a dupe. This 
calf is nothing at all.' Then said Moses, ' Well, then, why 
get angry with these children?' "* 

Verse 19. — *'And it came to pass, as soon as he came 
nigh unto the camp, that he saw the calf, and the dancing ; 
and Moses' anger waxed hot, and he cast the tables out of 
his hands, and brake them beneath the mount." According 
to verse 16 these tables were the work of Grod," and the 
writing thereon was "the writing of God." After the 
breaking of the two tables of stone, and before the destruc- 
tion of the calf, there was, according to Deut., chap, xx., 
V. 18, an interval of a second period of forty days and nights 
not mentioned here. 

Verse 20. — " And he took the calf which they had made, 
and burnt it in the fire, and ground it to powder, and 
strawed it upon the water, and made the children of Israel 
' * Exode, p. 150. ' ' ' 



ITS AtrXHENTICITY A^'I> CREDIBIEITY. 287 



drink of it.'* The word ''burnt" Cahen translates 
calcined."* Gold is a metal distinguished by its extreme 
permanence in air and fire, by its density, malleability, and 
ductility ; it might have been melted by the action of fire, 
but could not be burnt — i.e., consumed by fire. The Douay 
says that Moses " beat it to powder this would be very 
difficult, as it is so malleable that it may be beaten into 
leaves not more than the 280,000th part of an inch in 
thickness. Our version says, ground it to powder ;" this 
would be also a difficult task, unless Moses had chemical 
aids of which we know nothing. The golden calf being 
reduced to powder, Moses strewed it upon the water, and 
made the Israelites drink of it. Unless a chloride of gold 
had been formed by the use of chlorine and nitro -muriatic 
acid, and of which we have no account, or unless some 
analogous chemical process had been pursued, the gold 
would not be soluble in water, but would sink to the bottom, 
leaving the water entirely unaffected. According to the 
repetition of this story in Deut., chap, xx., v. 21, it appears 
that the golden calf was burnt, ground, and stamped until 
it was as small as dust," and was then thi^own into the 
brook. Nothing is there said about the Israelites drinking 
it. 

Aaron was a most cowardly traitor when in charge of the 
people. He encouraged them to idolatry, and when 
questioned by Moses he laid all the blame on the Jews. 
His excuse for the manufacture of the calf is really 
charming. " I said unto them. Whosoever hath any gold, 
let them break it off. So they gave it me ; then I cast it 
into the fire, and there came out this calf." After this, 
Closes, whose anger had waxed hot, collected the men of 
the tribe of Levi, who had been equally guilty with their 
brethren in the worship of the calf, and set them to 
slaughter every man his brother, his companion, and his 
neighbour. In this slaughter there fell, according to our 
version, 3,000 men ; but according to the Douay, 23,000 
men were slain. It is doubtful whether the author of 
1 Corinthians, chap, x., v. 8, refers to this or to IS'umbers, 



* See pxode, p. 151, 



288 



EXODUS : 



chap. XXV., for the reference agrees with neither. Which- 
ever version is right, it is evident that Aaron, who deserved 
the most punishment, escaped scot-free. The Lord's 
vengeance was not satisfied with even this terrible sacrifice 
of human life ; and we are told, in the phraseology of our 
orthodox version of the Bible, that " the Lord plagued the 
people because tliey made the calf which Aaron made^ 

Verses 32 and 33. — " Yet now, if thou wilt forgive their 
sin — ; and if not, blot me, I pray thee, out of thy book 
which thou hast written. And the Lord said unto Moses, 
Whosoever hath sinned against me, him will I blot out of 
my book." Cahen says that it is an Israelitish tradition 
that God kept in heaven a register of all the living, and 
that if a name was effaced, the person died (see Psalms, 
chap. Ixix., V. 28 ; chap, cxxxix., v. 16 ; Isaiah, chap, iv., v. 3). 

Chap, xxxiii., vv. 1 to 3, and chap, xxxiv., v. 11. — Judea 
was not a land flowing with milk and honey, nor did the Lord 
perform his oath. He did not secure Canaan to the seed 
of Abraham, nor drive out the Canaanite and the other 
nations mentioned {vide Joshua, chap, xvii., w. 12 and 13 ; 
Judges, chap, i., w. 19, and 27 to 35 ; chap, ii., vv. 20 to 
23, and chap, iii., w. 1 to 6). 

In verse 2, after Perizzite, the Septuagint and Samaritan, 
add " the G-ergashites." " I will not go up in the midst of 
thee : for thou art a stiff*-necked people : lest I consume 
thee in the way." This phrase from the mouth of an im- 
mutable Deity would be impossible. The person who wrote 
it regarded it as possible that, if Grod actually went with 
the Jews in presence in their journeying to the promised 
land, he might lose his temper at the sight of their short- 
comings and destroy them ; to obviate the possibility of an 
event so lamentable, God, the omnipotent, who is always 
everywhere, determines to keep away from the Jews, And 
sends an angel as his deputy. 

Verses 4, 5, and 6. — Why did the Lord want the children 
of Jlsrael to put off their ornaments ? If this were nar- 
rated in any other book than the Bible some shrewd 
Christians would shake their heads and say, We are afraid 
Moses and Aaron were not quite honest — first, Aaron in- 
duces the people to bring him their gold earrings under 



ITS ATJTHENTICITT AKD CEEDIBILITY. 



289 



the pretext that he would make them a God, and now 
Moses deprives the people of their remaining trinkets, 
under the pretence that the Lord commands them to put 
them off. It must not be forgotten that many of these 
jewels, earrings, and other trinkets must have been actually 
obtained by the Israelites from the Egyptians, in accordance 
with the command of Moses given previous to the Exodus. 

Verses 9 and 10. — This pillar of cloud "is a favourite 
shape, and if the whole ^vere an imposture, it would have 
been an easy matter for Moses by artificial means to have 
raised a ^'pillar of cloud " when he pleased, especially as 
such precautions were taken to prevent too close an exa- 
mination by the Israelites. 

Verse 11. — Apart from the question of contradiction 
(which has been noticed on page 271), is not this verse 
condemned by itself? The purpose and meaning of the 
language used is to raise Moses in the estimation of the 
Israelites, and to efi'ect this object it degrades the Deity 
by the very terms used ; the conversation contained in 
verses 12 to 20 has all the same tendency, making it ap- 
pear that Moses was G-od's favourite, and that God Jcneio 
his name. The ^' young man " Joshua was, according to 
Cahen, about 56 years old. 

In verse 13, instead of " show me thy way," the Douay 
has " show me thy face ;" this accounts for the expression 
in \-. 20, "Thou canst not see my face," but it distinctly 
contradicts the " face to face " of verse 11. 

Verse 14. — " My presence shall go with thee, and I will 
give thee rest." Cahen reads, " onon indignation se calmera 
et je te serai favor oMeT 

Verse 15. — " If thy presence go not with me, carry us 
not up hence." Cahen, " ton indignation ne se calme 
pas, lie nous fais pas monter d'icir The Douay, " If thou 
thyself dost not go before, bring us not out of this place." 

Verse 23. — " And I will take away mine hand, and th^u 
shalt see my back parts ; but my face shall not be seen." 
Who can read this verse thoughtfully, and yet be filled 
with awe and admiration for a Deity, who only allows his 
favoured Prophet to see his " back parts." The absurdity 
is heightened by the remembrance of the many distinct 



290 



EXOBUS : 



appelaTanees of God to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, the 
Tiew accorded shortly before to Moses himself, and seventy- 
three other persons who all saw God in the mount, and 
last, not least, the coming face to face with God noticed in 
verse 11. 

Cahen says, " In speaking of the infinite, absolute, and 
immaterial Being, man is compelled to use terms which 
recall finite, contingent, and material objects. These kinds 
of figures, which are continually made use of in meta- 
physics, often throw upon this science a certain obscurity 
which is met with even in the works, written by our con- 
temporaries in our mother tongue ; how much more 
profound must this obscurity be when the writer makes 
use of a language which, seven centuries before the vulgar 
era, had been then for a long time dead, and the grammar 
of which does not date higher than the age of Charlemagne ? 
We leave them to each the liberty of seeking in this 
phrase a metaphysical sense." 

The Douay, in a foot note, says, "The Lord by his 
Angel, usually spoke to Moses in the pillar of the cloud ; 
so that he could not see the glory of him that spoke fami- 
liarly with him. In the vision here mentioned, he was 
allowed to see something of him, in an assumed corporeal 
form: not in the face, the rays of which were too bright for 
mortal eye to hear, but to view him as it were behind, 
when his face was turned from him." The eleventh verse, 
unhappily for the recipients of the Douay, is directly in 
opposition to this. The Palestine Targum, on verse 22, 
makes Moses overshadowed by the Memra, until the glory 
of the Shekinah had passed by. This Memra is a sort 
of God in a second personality, and, Etheridge says, is 
probably identical with the "word " in the Gospel of St. 
John.* 

Chapter xxxiv. — ^The reader finds again in this verse 
the temporary localisation of God on the top of the moun- 
tain where Moses goes to him for, at least, the third time, 
and fasts there for a third period of forty days, neither 
eating bread nor drinking water. "While verse 1 says that 



* Targums on the f entateupli, p. 15. 



ITS AOTHENTICITT ANI> CBEDIBILITT. 291 



the Lord will re-write the Decalogue on the two tables of 
stone, verse 20 says that it was Moses who actually did 
write the second edition of the Ten Commandments. 

Verse 6. — The Lord " proclaimed." The Douay puts 
the words in the mouth of Moses, " The Lord God mer- 
ciful and gracious." When, where, and how was this mercy, 
graciousness, and long suffering on the part of the Grod 
of the Bible manifested ? "Was it when condemning the 
first man and woman falling into the divinely baited trap, 
and cursing the very ground on which they stood (Genesis, 
chap, iii.) ; or when he determined to destroy not only 
man whom he was tired of striving to make better, but also 
the beast, and the creeping thing, and the fowls of the air 
(Genesis, chap, vi., v. 7) ; or was it when he rained brimstone 
and fire upon Sodom and Gomorrah (Genesis, chap, xix., 
V. 24) ; or when, having himself hardened Pharaoh's 
heart, so that he should not let the children of Israel 
go, he slew the firstborn in every family throughout Egypt 
in order to procure Israel's deliverance (Exodus, chap, xii., 
V. 29) ; or when he drowned all Pharaoh's army in the 
Eed Sea (Exodus, chap, xiv., v. 27) ; or was it when he, 
the great creator, swore to have war with Amalek from 
generation to generation (Exodus, chap, xvii., v. 16) — ^that 
is, where was the mercy and graciousness of the destroyer 
who pre- doomed to misery the unfortunate race whom 
he must create in order that they should suffer ; or 
when he killed Nadab and Abihu with fire (Leviticus, chap. 
X., V. 2) ; or when he repeatedly attached the penalty of 
death to the infringement of almost any article of the cere- 
monial law ; or when his fire consumed the people because 
they complained (Numbers, chap. xi. v. 1) ; or when he 
smote them with a great plague (verse 83) ; or when be 
ordered the man to be stoned to death who was found 
gathering sticks on the Sabbath (Numbers, chap. xv. v. 
36) ; or when he enjoined his people to be pitiless against 
all heretics (Deut. c. xiii., v. 6) ; or was it when he caused 
the earth to swallow Korah, Dathan, and Abiram,^ and all 
that appertained to them, and afterwards slew 250 more 
by fire, and 14,700 more by plague (Numbers, chap, xvi., 
TVc 31 to 35; and 49) ; or when he sent fiery serpents to 



292 



bite hk people, so that they died (Numbers, chap, xxi., v. 
6) ; or when he sent the plague, and killed 24,000 of his 
people (Numbers, chap, xxv., v. 9) ; or when he directed 
the terrible slaughter of the Midianites (Numbers, chap, 
xxxi.) ; or when he gave general injunctions for the pillage 
and slaughter to extermination of all peoples who did 
not consent to serfdom (Deut. c. xx., x. 40). 

Verse 11. — After " Hivites," the Samaritan and Septua- 
gint add " the Grergushites." 

Verse 14. — The Lord, whose name is jealous, is a jealous 
God." Kalisch renders "jealous," "zealous," but there 
does not seem sufficient ground for his change. According 
to an ordinary dictionary, to be jealous is to be " suspi- 
ciously viligant," " suspiciously fearful." The omniscient, 
omnipotent, immutable, and infinite Deity, of what can he 
be jealous? Perhaps this phrase might be considered 
figurative, were it not that we do find in the Bible narrative 
considerable evidences of this jealousy operating in Grod's 
transactions with his people. 

Verses 29, 30, 35. — The Douay says that after Moses 
had talked to the Lord, his face was horned, and that the 
children of Israel, seeing the horns, were afraid to come 
near him. The Douay strictly follows the Vulgate, 
" qtcod cornuta esset fades sica^ Cahen says the word pp, 
KeEeN, signifies "ray" or "horn," from which, he says, 
is derived the singular idea of representing Moses with a 
horned face. This "horned" face is one of the many 
points of resemblance found in the stories of Moses and 
Bacchus.^ In our own authorised version, this very word 
KeEeN is translated " horn " in Exodus, c. xxvii., v. 2. 

Chap. XXXV., vv. 1 and 2 give a third repetition of the 
prohibition of Saturday, with a second repetition of the 
threat of death as a penalty for disobedience. The com- 
mand to " kindle no fire" on the Sunday has been much 
discussed by the Jewish writers. 

We extract the following from Cahen on this subject : — 
" Eosenmiiller, according to Michaelis, declares that this 

* See article "Bacchus," Voltaire's Philosophical Dictionary," 
and Parkhurst's Hebrew Lexicon," p. 659. 



ITS AUTHENTIOiTY AND CREDIBILITY. 293 



law (as also several others established by Moses) was 
suitable to Palestine and not to all countries. In hot 
countries, the supper is the principal meal. The Jews, 
who reckoned the day from one evening to the next, pre- 
pared and took this meal on the sixth day, a little before 
the commencement of the Sabbath, and they lit a fire when 
the Sabbath was ended, to prepare the supper of that day. 
It does not appear that this law forbade them to light a 
fire in order to keep away the cold." Eosenmiiller adds, 
" It is shown sufficiently by this prohibition that the 
Mosaic Code was not established for every nation, nor for 
every country." The Talmudist and the Caraiteshave not 
always understood it thus ; these extend the rigour of the 
prohibition to a much higher degree. One of their chiefs, 
Eli Bechizi, in the fifteenth century, attempted to bring 
back his people to more reasonable ideas : but a Caraite 
doctor, named Abrahame Babi, in a work entitled, " Aisur 
qer Shebeth " (prohibition to light a fire on the Sabbath), 
supported the most rigorous sabbatical observance. Aben 
Ezra says that the Eabbi Saaiah has composed an excellent 
treatise upon the same subject. Though the prohibition 
to light a fire on the Sabbath would appear to relate to 
some custom which the author had in view, and which is 
unknown to us, the supposition of Michaelis is presented 
without proof, and appears to us difficult of admission. 
The prohibition to light a fire is absolute. The Caraites 
appear to have followed the law more closely than the 
Tavlmudists ; the first do not allow the fire to be lighted by 
a non-Israelite ; and certainly nothing will justify us in 
causing to be done by another what we are forbidden to 
do ourselves.* The Septuagint finishes this verse with 
these words, " I, the Eternal " — {ego, Xyrios). 

Verse 28. — Aben Ezra, says Cahen, expresses his 
astonishment that the Eulers had still preserved oil to 
burn after several months absence from Egypt. There 
are many differences in this chapter between the text of 
the Septuagint and our version ; in the Vatican copy of 
the Septuagint, verse 8 is entirely omitted. There are 
also many verbal differences of transl ation between the 

* * Exode, p. 162. 



ExoBtrs : 



authorised version and the Douay ; we select one verse as 
an illustration. Our version has in verse 26, "And all 
the women, whose heart stirred them up in wisdom, spun 
goats' hair." The Douay has, " And goats' hair giving all 
of their own accord." 

Chap, xxxvi., v. 3. — "And they received of Moses all 
the offermg which the children of Israel had brought for 
the work of the service of the sanctuary, to make it withal. 
And they brought yet unto him free-offerings every morn- 
ing." The Douay reads, " He delivered all the offerings of 
the children of Israel unto them. And while they were 
earnest about the work, the people daily in the morning 
offered their vows." 

Verse 4. — " G-ramberg," says Cahen, " is astonished that 
so many skilled workmen were found in the desert amongst 
a people, who, in their greatest posterity under Solomon, 
were unable to find one good carpenter." 

Verse 7. — From this verse to the end of the chapter 
xxxix., the difference between the Hebrew text and that of 
the Septuagint is so great, and the transposition of phrases 
so frequent, that the latter version is contained without 
being divided into verses — ^it being impossible to make 
them correspond. 

Verses 20 to 30. — Colenso, who identifies the shittim 
wood with the acacia, quotes from Canon Stanley the 
statement that not a single tree of this description can now 
be seen in the region where the building of the tabernacle 
is supposed to have taken place. There are very many 
differences between the Douay version and our own ; in 
this chapter, and in c. xxxvii. and c. xxxviii., in the descrip- 
tion of the curtain hangings and fittings of the Tabernacle, 
words and phrases appearing in the one which are not 
found in the other. To repeat the whole of these varia- 
tions here would be tiresome to the reader. 

Chap, xxxviii., v. 8. — "The looking glasses of thewomeii 
assembling." Kalisch says, " The looking glasses of the 
women who served." The Douay has, " The mirrors of the 
women that watched." Cahen regards this as probably 
borrowed from the Egyptians, whose women, he says, were 
accustomed to entei^ the tabernacle with a mirror in the 
left-hand. 



ITS ArTHEXTICITT A^D CEEDIETLTTT. 295 



Ver>e 25. — ^The words "after the shekel of the sanc- 
tuary," are not in the Samaritan version. 

Verse 26. — In his note to this verse, Cahen raises the 
question since amplified by Colenso in his comment on 
chap. XXX., V. 11 — viz., that the numbers given are the 
numbers of the census, although the census did not take 
place until a later period.^ 

Yer.se 29. — Cahen calculates the value of the metals used 
in the Tabernacle at about 3,000,000 francs. 

Chap, xxxix., vv. 10 and 11. — Our version puts a car- 
buncle in the first row and an emerald in the second. The 
Douay says, the emerald was in the first and the carbuncle 
in the second row. Kalisch puts both the carbuncle and 
emerald in the second row, inserting a cornelian and a 
smaragd in the first. In the second row, the Douay has 
" a jasper" instead of a diamond. This '- jasper " is put 
by our version in the fourth row, where the Douay and 
Kalisch have *'a chrysolite." 

Verses 15 to 21 are so difi*erent in the Douay from what 
they are in our version, that it is really dif&cult to imagine 
the two versions as translations from the same Hebrew 
original. 

Verse 21. — In the Samaritan version, it is added that 
they made the Urim and Thummim, as God had com- 
manded Moses." 

Chap, xl., V. 7 and 8 are altogether wanting in the Sep- 
tuagint version. 

Verse 17. — After the word " month," the Septuagint and 
Samaritan add " from their departure from Egypt." 

Verse 38. — Cahen remarks that " the writer of Exodus 
has made use of five words to denote the tabernacle — 1 
residence ; 2nd, tent ; 3rd, the holy ; 4th, tent of meeting 
or assembly ; 5th, residence tent of assembly. We notice 
in the tabernacle — 1st, the ark or chest with the cover 
and the cherubim ; 2nd, the table with the show bread ; 
3rd, the golden candlestick; 4th, the court of the taber- 
nacle, with an altar of incense, and an altar of sacri- 
fice, and a basin of brass. Of all these objects, we find 
little mentioned in time s posterior to jloses of any save 
♦ Exode, p, 175. 



296 



EXODUS : 



tlie ark. "We do not know what became of the tabernacle 
under the government of the Schophtime (Judges). The 
greatest likeness exists between the construction of the 
tabernacle and that of the temple of Solomon. According 
to the systematic ideas which Grramberg has formed upon 
the composition of the books of the Old Testament, he 
tliinks that the conception of the tabernacle is posterior to 
the building of the temple. (' Critical History of the Reli- 
gious Ideas of the Old Testament,' tome 1, p. 15, Berlin, 
1829). This bold conjecture, which we do not pretend to 
adopt, we submit to the consideration and examination of 
archsBologists and men of an independent mind." 

De "Wette, in a note on chap. xxxv. to c. xL, says,* " Chap. 
XXXV., vv. 1 to 3 seems misplaced, and so does xli. 36-38, 
which does not seem to be contemporary with the erection 
of the tabernacle. These accounts of the tabernacle pre- 
sent some important peculiarities. In Exodus xxv., Moses is 
commanded to make the tabernacle and its furniture after 
a certain pattern. A minute description is given of the 
furniture to be made for it, of the dresses of the priests 
and the form of consecration, and two men are said to be 
inspired to perform the work. Next (xxxiii. 7 and 9) it 
seems, the tabernacle is finished. It is named the ' taber- 
nacle of assembly.' The people flock to it to seek Jehovah. 
Moses entered, and a cloud stood at the door of it. But 
after this (chap, xxxv., 5^.), Moses requests contributions 
for building the tabernacle. They were brought; the 
tabernacle is made ; it is called the ' tabernacle of the 
assembly ;' and the cloud descends upon it. But Moses 
was not able to enter it." In concluding the commenta^ry 
on Exodus, we cannot avoid asking what is the fair result 
of our labours, and it certainly seems undeniable that the 
volume fails in commanding respect either as a history 
of the Exodus of the Jews from Egypt or as a legislative 
^ code. Examined as historical narrative, the volume is 
found incoherent and contradicted by other portions of the 
Pentateuch. Tested as a code of laws, many of the enact- 
ments are cruel and brutal, some of them are puerile, and 
others are contradicted in other books of the Bible. Read 



* On the Old Testament, Vol, II., p. 114. 



ITS AITTHEiiTICITY AND CEEDIBILITT. 



297 



as a revelation from a Deity, the picture given of Grod as 
vacillating, uncertain, and vindictive is, by no means, a por- 
traiture to command our love. Exodus cannot be a reve- 
lation from Grod, taking the ordinary theistic definition of 
Deity ; it pictures an all-wise God choosing a man, with an 
impediment in his speech, to be a preacher, and declares 
that when the man hesitated on account of his natural 
infirmity, God became angry at a difficulty, the existence 
of which he not only well knew that Closes could not help, 
but which must have been of his own creation. It repre- 
sents a just God as seeking to kill (apparently without the 
slightest efficient cause) the very man whom he had just 
entrusted with the important mission of releasing his chosen 
people from bondage ; it speaks of an invisible God as 
becoming visible ; of an immutable God as changing his 
purposes ; of a loving and merciful Creator and father 
declaring war against unborn generations of his own crea- 
tures and children ; of a just God as punishing the people 
for following the advice of the priest whom he had sanctified 
and appointed, and yet allowing the criminal priest not 
only to escape impunished, but actually rewarded for the 
very misconduct for which God plagued his people. It 
pictures a merciful and good God as tormenting and mur- 
dering the Egyptians, solely for the purpose of convincing 
the Jews that he is really the Lord God of Israel, and 
afterwards plagueing and slaughtering those very Israelites, 
because all the former cruelties practised on their neigh- 
bours had not produced sufficient convincing effect on 
them. It teaches monotheism in one verse, and yet leaves 
polytheism the only fair inference from another. 



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LE"viTicrrs t 

ITS AUTHENTICITY AND CEEDIBILITT. 



The word, K^ip^i, UIQEA, " and he called/* wtich is the 
first word in the Hebrew of this third book of the Bible, 
forms its title amongst the Jews. The words " third book 
of Moses " do not exist either in the Hebrew, Greek, or 
Vulgate. Cahen says — " The Greeks and Latins have called 
it Leviticus, because it treats of all that relates to the 
service of the Le\ites or those holding priestly offices, of 
the sacrifices, of the perpetual fire, of the separation, of 
the leprous, of purification, of expiation, of the feasts, of 
the worship, <fec. It is for this reason that the Rabbis call 
this book, TUEeTh E:ENIM, D^iMD r\^^n, doctrine of the 
priests, and m:i:ipn niin, doctrine of oblations. The par- 
tiality with which the matters relating to sacrifices are 
treated, shows evidently that the author of Leviticus 
belonged to the sacerdotal caste. We find in this third 
part of the Pentateuch more development, more method in 
its explanations than in the four other parts. It is almost 
totally consecrated to the services exercised by the tribe 
of Levi. Gramberg places the composition of this book 
in the fourth period, commencing at the Babylonian capti- 
vity." The sacrifices and priestly rites ordered in Levi- 
ticus, and the other books of the Pentateuch, are not 
peculiar to the Jews; most of them are derived from 
Egypt, and nearly all nations have made usage of sacrifice 
to their Gods as a means of propitiation. The sacrifices 
here ordered are divided by Etheridge* into two classes, 

* Targums on Leviticus. 



300 



LEVITICUS : 



expiatory and eucliaristic — that is, sin offerings and praise 
offerings. Dr. John Pye Smith* defines sacrifice as " a 
solemn act of religion in which the life of a lining creature 
is taken away as an acknowledgment of sin on the part ot 
the olierer, with the expectation of obtaining a remission of 
the penal suffering thus confessed to be merited from God 
to whom the sacrifice is presented." Admitting only fur the 
sake of argument the sin committed by man against God 
and the punishment deserved, the doctrine of sacrifice is, 
that God must have somebody or something on whom or 
which he can inflict the punishment, which ought but for 
the sacrifice to fall on the sinner — mercy is left out, the 
appetite for vengeance must be appeased in some manner. 

Etheridge, in speaking of the two classes into which he 
divides the sg-crifices, says — "The first class (expiatory) 
includes the sacrifices proper. In them the life of the 
victim was offered for the life of the sinner, and its blood 
was shed as an atonement for guilt. These peculiar sacri- 
fices were of three kinds : — 1. The Olah, Ka-lil, or * whole 
burnt offering,' because wholly consumed, and sent up, by 
the action of fire, in the flame and smoke of the altar. 
Olah comes from Alah, * to ascend Ixx. olohautoma, ' holo- 
caust,' a term which refers to the entire consumption of 
the victim. 2. The Chataah, oust ' sin offering,' the same 
■word signifying * sin ' (^^^t. amartia — i.e., peri amartias). 
3. The Asham, or * trespass offering' from Ashmah, * to be 
guilty Sept. TJiusia soteriou, * the sacrifice of salvation 
Yulg., hostia pro delicto ; Sept., peri pleononeleias. "While 
the diflerence between sin and trespass offerings is textually 
marked in the Levitical law, the distinction between the 
offences for which they were offered is not so clearly given. 
Some think that ' sins,' in the technical phraseology of the 
ceremonial law, are violations of prohibitory statutes— i.e., 
doing something which the law forbids to do. * Trespasses,' 
on the other hand, are violations of imperative statutes — 
i.e., neglecting to do those things which are commanded. 
These piacular sacrifices are sometimes called kippurim — 
Ixx. Katharismoi, * expiations or atonements,' On the 



* First lines ot ChrisiiaD Theology, p. 628. 



ITS AIJTHENTICITT AJ^D CEEDIEILITT. 



301 



question about the manner in which they were expiatory, 
or on the real relation between their presentation and the 
forgiveness of sin, there are two opposite doctrines. 

"1. There was that in the nature of the sacrifice itself 
which could efficaciously atone for sin. But the divines 
who take this view are not agreed as to the principle upon 
which the offerings became expiative. a. Some have 
thought that the virtue of the sacrifice consisted in this — 
that a certain material possession was given up by the ofierer 
for the sake of gaining a spiritual blessing, h. Others con- 
sider the sacrifice in the light of a fine, by the payment of 
.which the offender is set right with his judge ; while (c.) others 
holding that evil rests in that which is material or sensual, 
and regarding blood as the representation of the sensual 
or evil principle, see in the shedding and presentation of 
blood at the altar a physical atonement for moral evil or 
sin. Tet in direct opposition to this theory, another 
opinion considers the vital blood to have been propitiatory 
because it was pure, and represented the acknowledgment 
of the offerer's obligation to have been himself pure, and 
his desire to become so. 

" 2. The second doctrine is, that the Mosaic sacrifices had 
not, nor could have, any intrinsic or atoning power in 
themselves ; but derived their value from their having been 
divinely appointed as means to lead the mind of the offerer 
to a real expiation of which they were the symbols. They 
were types of the atoning sacrifice of the l^^mb of Grod 
who taketh away the sin of the world." 

As to a, it may be replied (1) that the Jews did not look 
for spiritual blessings. Their pleasures and pains, punish- 
ments and rewards, were all for this life ; the loss of life is 
the most severe punishment threatened. 2. That to 
imagine that a man, who has a cow or a sheep to roast, 
may procure a spiritual blessing which is withheld from 
the poorer sinner, who lacks the means of this propitiating 
Deity, is hardly consonant with the modern theistic 
doctrine of an aU-good, all-just, and all-merciful G-od. 
The same argument applies to h. The doctrine of physical 
atonement by the offering of the life of any man or brute 
for man's sin, seems so monstrously cmel and cowardly. 



302 



LETITICTTS : 



that it would hardly require further notice were it not 
that it is this doctrine which forms the base of New Testa- 
ment Christianity. "We object to the whole theory of 
expiatory sacrifice, either as contained in the Pentateuch 
or as afterwards taught in the New Testament, as un- 
reasonable, degrading, and debasing. It is scarcely curious 
that the Levites, who shared with G-od the sacrifice, should 
promulgate the law which directs that only first-class cattle, 
goats and birds, and the best fruits and flour, shaH be 
ofi'ered. The writer of Cozri* says that, judging each 
sacrifice in itself, it would be difficult to imagine it agree- 
able to G-od : for the priest is quite as much an executioner 
as a minister of the altar. For example, in slaughtering a 
Iamb, the priest is stained with blood, he skins the lamb, 
washes its entrails, washes it, he cuts the lamb in pieces, 
sprinkles the blood, arranges the wood, lights the fire, 
carries away the refuse, ofial, &c. If it were not, says the 
Cozri, for the order of God, the priest would refuse entirely 
such disgusting and menial duties. 

Colenso saysf — " The Book of Leviticus is chiefly 
occupied in giving directions to the priests for the proper 
discharge of the difi*erent duties of their office, and further 
directions are given in the Book of Numbers. 

"1. In the case of every burnt ofi*ering which any man 
shall ofier, whether builock, or sheep, or goat, or turtle 
dove, the priests, Aaron's sons, shall sprinkle the blood 
upon the altar, and put fire upon the altar, and lay the 
wood in order on the fire, and lay the parts, the head and 
the fat in order upon the wood ; * and the priest shall burn 
all on the altar to be a burnt sacrifice.' 

" 2. So in the case of a meat offering, peace offering, sin 
offering, or trespass offering, the priest has special duties 
assigned to him as before. 

" 3. Every woman, after child-birth, is to bring a lamb 
for a burnt offering, and a pigeon or turtle-dove for a sin 
offering, or two young pigeons for the two offerings, and 
the priest is to officiate as before (L. xii). 



* Cahen, Levitique, p. 33. 
t Pentateuch, Part I., p. 122. 



ITS ATJTHEOTICnrr AITD CBEDIBILITT. 803 



4. Every case of leprosy is to be brouglit again and 
again to the priest^ and carefully inspected by him till it is 
cured (L. xiii). 

" 5. Any one cured of leprosy is to bring a burnt offer- 
ing and a sin offering, and the priest is to officiate as before 
(L. xiv). 

" 6. Por certain ceremonial pollutions which are specified, 
the priest is to offer sacrifice (L. xv. 15, BO). 

" 7. For a male or female Nazarite, when the days of 
separation are fulfilled, the priest is to offer a burnt offer- 
ing, a sin offeriQg, and a peace offering (N. vi). 

8. Every day, morning and evening, the priest is to 
offer a lamb for a continual burnt offering, besides addi- 
tional sacrifices on the Sabbath, the IS'ew Moon, at the 
feast of unleavened bread, and at the feast of the first fruits 
(N. xxviii), 

"9. In the seventh month for several days together, 
besides the daily sacrifice, there were to be extraordinary 
additional sacrifices, so that, on the fifteenth day of the 
month, the priest was to offer 13 bullocks, 2 rams, and 14 
lambs ; and in the seven days, from the fifteenth to the 
twenty-first, 70 bullocks, 14 rams, and 98 lambs (N. xxix). 

''10. Lastly, if it should be thought that the above 
sacrificial system was not meant to be in full operation in 
the wilderness, we may call attention to the frequent re- 
ferences made in the enunciation of these laws to the 
camp (L. iv. 12, 21, vi. 11, xiii. 46, xiv. 3, 8), as well as 
to the words of the prophet Amos, v. 25 — * Have ye 
offered unto me sacrifices and offerings in the wilderness 
forty years, O House of Israel ?' which show that, in the 
Prophet's view, at all events, such sacrifices were required 
and expected of them. 

" And now let us ask for all these multifarious duties 
during the forty years' sojourn in the wilderness, for all 
the burnt offerings, meat offerings, peace offerings, sin 
offerings, trespass offerings, thank offerings, &c., of a popu- 
lation like that of the City of London, besides the daily 
and extraordinary sacrifices, how many priests were there ? 
The answer is very simple. There were only three — Aaron 
(till his death) and his two &om* Eleazar and Ithamar. 



S04i 



3LEYITICTJS : 



} And it is laid down very solemnly in iii. 10 — ^ ^hou 
slialt appoint Aaron and his sons, and they shall wait 
in the priest's office; and the stranger that cometh nigh 
shall he put to death' . 

" Tet how was it possible that these two or three men 
should have discharged all these duties for such a vast 
multitude ? The single work of offering the double sacri- 
fice for women after child-birth must have utterly over- 
powered three priests, though engaged without cessation 
from morning to night. The births among two millions of 
people may be reckoned as, at least, 250 a-day, for which, 
consequently, 500 sacrifices (250 burnt offerings and 250 
sin offerings) would have had to be offered daily. Looking 
at the directions in L. i., iv., we can scarcely allow less 
than five minutes for each sacrifice ; so that these sacrifices 
alone, if offered separately, would have taken 2,500 minutes, 
or nearly 42 hours, and could not have been offered in a 
single day of twelve hours, though each of the three priests 
had been employed in the one sole incessant labour of 
offering them without a moment's rest or intermission. 

" It may, perhaps, be said that ma7i7/ such sacrifices might 
have been offered at the same time. This is surely some- 
what contrary to the notion of a sacrifice as derived from 
the Book of Leviticus ; nor is there the slightest intimation, 
in the whole Pentateuch, of any such heaping together of 
sacrifices ; and it must be borne in mind that there was 
but one altar, five cubits (about 9ft.) square (E. xxvii. 1), 
at which we have already supposed all the three priests to be 
officiating at the same moment, actually offering, therefore, 
upon the altar three sacrifices at once, of which the burnt 
offerings would, except in the case of poor women (L. xii. 
8), be lamhs and not pigeons. But then we must ask 
further where could they have obtained these 250 ' turtle 
doves or young pigeons ' daily, that is, 90,000 annually in 
the ivilde7mess ? There might be two offered for each birth ; 
there must, according to the law, be one (L. xii. 6, 8). Did 
the people, then, carry with them turtle doves and young 
pigeons out of Egypt, when they fled in such haste and so 
heavily laden, and as yet knew nothing of any such law ? 
Or how could they have had thei at all under Sinai ? It 



ITS ArTHEOTlCiTT? AM) CEEDIBILITY. 



805 



cannot be said that the laws, which require the sacrifice of 
such birds, were intended only to suit the circumstances of 
a later time, when the people should be finally settled in 
the land of Canaan. 

" In fact, we have one of these commands, manifestly 
referring to their life in the wilderness (L. xiv), where 
after it has been ofdered that the priest shall go out of the 
camp to look at the leper (v. 3), and that the leper duly 
cleansed shall ^ after that come into the camp and shall 
tarry abroad out of his tent seven days ' (v. 8), and on the 
eighth day, shall ofier * two he lambs and one ewe lamb,' 
&c. (v. 10), it is added, v. 21, * and if he he poo?' and cannot 
get so much, then he shall take one lamb, i&c, and tivo 
turtle-doves or tico young pigeons, such as he is able to get.' 

" Here the * turtle doves or young pigeons ' are prescribed 
as a lighter and easier offering for the poor to bring ; they 
are spoken of, therefore, as being in abundance, as being 
within the reach of every one in the wilderness under 
Sinai ! It would seem to follow that such laws as these 
could not have been written by Moses, but must have been 
composed at a later 'age, when the people were already 
settled in Canaan, and the poor, who could not afford a 
lamb, could easily provide themselves with pigeons. In 
the desert, it would have been equally impossible for rich 
or poor to procure them." 

Chap, i., V. 1. — "And the Lord called unto Moses, and 
spake unto him out of the tabernacle of the congregation, 
saying." The Douay, following the Vulgate, says, Out 
of the tabernacle of the testimony." Cahen calls it, " Be 
la tente assignation.'*^ It is evident that the writer of 
Leviticus has in his mind located the Grod of the Jews in 
the tabernacle. Pollowing Exodus, c. xxv., v. 22, it is the 
national Deity, the Grod of the Jews who gives these 
•commands. 

Verse 3. — -The Douay reads — "If his ofiering be a holo- 
caust" (the Septuagint, olohautoma, that which is burned 
entirely) "and of the herd, he shall offer a male without 
blemish at the door of the testimony to malce the Lord 
favourable to Mm.'' ^ It will be perceived that the words 
italicised are not contained in our version at all. Cahen 



306 



LETITICIJS : 



has "to obtain grace before the Lord." The holocaust, or 
whole burnt offering, is so called because the whole victim 
was consumed with fire, and ascended, as we are told in 
verse 9, " with a sweet savour to the Lord." What ele- 
vated conceptions of the Deity are here conveyed; an 
infinite Grod, whose favour is granted to the man who offers 
the most sheep or oxen ; a just and immutable Grod, to 
whom the sweet savour of roast mutton is an acceptable 
expiatory equivalent on behalf of a murderer, a robber, or 
other criminal. 

Verse 7. — The Douay says the wood is to be put in 
lefore the fire ; our version that the fire is to go Jlrsty and 
the wood to be laid upon it. 

Verses 9, 13, and 17. — " A sweet savour unto the Lord" 
(see Genesis, pages 74 and 75). The author of these verses 
evidently regards the sweet savour of the sacrifice as a 
feature pleasant to the immutable Deity. 

Verse 15. — " Wring off his head and burn it on the 
altar." The Douay has "twisting back the neck and 
breaking the place of the wound." 

Chap. ii. V. 3, — " And the remnant of the meat-offering 
shall be Aaron's and his sons' ;* it is a thing most holy of 
the offerings of the Lord made by fire." And see also 
verse 10 in the same words. The priests are not neglected 
in this revelation. Care is taken that the flour shall be 
fine and the meat without blemish. 

Verse 11,—" No meat-offering which ye shall bring unto 
the Lord shall be made with leaven ; for ye shall burn no 
leaven, nor any honey, in any offering of the Lord made by 
fire." Leaven is that which will cause fermentation in the 
mass to which it is applied. Cahen says this prohibition of 
leaven in the sacrifice is common to all ancient nations. 
Aben Ezra regards honey as a leaven. In the foot-note to 
the Douay we are told that " No leaven nor honey was to 
be used to signify that we excluded all double dealing and 
affection to carnal pleamres ! 

Verse 12.—-" As for the oblation of the first-fruits, ye 

* After the word " sons*' in each of the above verses the Douay has 
instead of the concluding words, «' holy of holies ot tlie offerings of th^ 
Lord." 



ITS ArTHENTICITT Ayj) CEEDIEILITT. 



307 



sliall offer them unto the Lord.'* And verse 14 (see 
Grenesis, page 50). Cain's offering of first-fruits was 
rejected. 

Yerse 13. — "And every oblation of thy meat-offering 
Shalt thou season with salt ; neither shalt thou suffer the 
salt of the covenant of thy God to be lacking from thy 
meat-offering ; with all thine offerings thou shalt offer salt." 
Without salt the sacrifice would be incomplete. Was not 
the salt rather required by the priests than by God ? It 
is easy to understand why a man wishes for salt to season 
his meat if the meat be intended for food, but it is not so 
easy to comprehend the same requisition on the part of a 
God. The Douay says that salt is an emblem of wisdom, 
without which none of our performances are agreeable to 
God. 

The words " meat offering** used throughout this chapter 
in our version are misleading. The Hebrew is nniD 
MelS'ChE, and denotes a bloodless offering." 

Chap. iv. w. 11 and 12. — " And the skin of the bullock, 
and all his flesh, with his head^ and with his legs, and his 
inwards, and his dung, even the whole bullock shall he (the 
priest) carry forth -without the camp unto a clean place, 
where the ashes are poured out, and burn him on the wood 
with fire : where the a-shes are poured out there shall he be 
burnt." (See also chaps, vi., x., xi.) Colenso says,* " The 
whole population of Israel at the exodus may be reckoned 
at two millions." Now, we cannot well allow for a living 
man, with room for his cooking, sleeping, and other neces- 
saries and conveniences of life, less than threo or four 
times the space required for a dead one in his grave. And 
even then the different ages and sexes would be very dis- 
agreeably crowded together. Let us allow, however, for 
each person on the average three times six feet by two feet,, 
the size of a coffin for a full-grown man — that is, let us 
allow for each person thirty- six square feet^ or four square 
yards. Then it follows that for two millions of people, 
without making any allowance for the tabernacle itself 
and it 3 court, and the 44,000 Levites, male and female 
(Numbers, iii. 39), who pitched round about it (Numbers, 
* Pentateuch, part i. p. 38. 



308 



LEYITICUS : 



i. 53), tlie camp must have covered— tlie people being 
crowded as thicHy as possible — an area, of 8,000,000 square 
yards, or more than 1,652 acres of ground. 

" Upon this very moderate estimate, tben (wbicli, in truth, 
is far within the mark), we must imagine a yast encamp- 
ment of this extent, swaming with people, more than 
a mile and a-Jialf Sicross in each direction, with the taber- 
nacle in the centre ; and so says Josephus, Ant., iii. 12, 5 : 
— It was like a well-appointed market ; and everything was 
there ready for sale in due order ; and all sorts of artificers 
were in th^ shops ; and it resembled nothing so much as a 
city that sometimes was moveable and sometimes was 
fixed. 

" Thus the refuse of these sacrifices would have had to be 
carried by the priest himself (Aaron, Eleazar, or Ishamar 
— there were no others) to a distance of three quarters of a 
mile. From the outside of this great camp wood and 
water would have had to be fetched for all purposes, if, 
indeed, such supplies of wood or water for the wants of 
such a multitude as this could have been found at all in 
the vfildemess — under Sinai, for instance, where they are 
said to have encamped for nearly twelve months together. 
How much wood would remain in such a neighbourhood 
after a month's consumption of the city of London even at 
midsummer ? And the ashes" of the whole camp, with 
the rubbish and filth of every kind, for a population like 
that of London^ woidd have had to be carried out in like 
manner through the midst of the crowded mass of people. 
They coidd not surely all have gone outside the camp for 
the necessities of nature as commanded in Deut. xxiii. 12-14. 
There were the aged and infirm women in childbirth, sick 
persons, and young children who could not have done this. 
And, indeed, the command itself supposes the person to 
have a " paddle" upon his " weapon," and, therefore,' must 
be understood to apply only to the males, or rather only to 
the 600,000 warriors. But the very fact that this direction 
for ensuring cleanliness — "For Jehovah thy God walketh 
in the midst of thy camp ; therefore shall thy camp be holy : 
that he see no unclean thing in thee, and turn away from 
thee" — ^would have been so limited in its application, is , 



ITS AUTHENTICITY AND CEEDIBILITT. 



309 



itself a very convincing proof of the unhistorical character 
of the whole narrative. 

" But how huge does this difficulty become, if, instead of 
taking the excessively cramped area of 1,652 acres, less 
than three square miles^ for such a camp as this, we take the 
more reasonable allowance of Scott, who says, " This 
encampment is computed to have formed a moveable city 
of twelve miles square— thsit is, about the size of London 
itself, as it might well be, considering that the population 
was as large as that of London, and that in the Hebrew 
tents there were no first, second, third, and fourth stories, 
no crowded garrets and underground cellars. In that case 
the offal of these sacrifices would have had to be carried by 
Aaron himself or one of his sons a distance of six miles 5 
and the same difficulty v\^ould have attended each of the 
other transactions above mentioned. In fact we have to 
imagine the priest having hiinself to carry on his back on 
foot from St Paul's to the outskirts of the metropolis the 
* skin and flesh, and head and legs, and inwards, and dung, 
even the whole bullock,' and the people having to carry out 
their rubbish in like manner, and bring in their daily sup- 
pKes of water and fuel, after first cutting down the latter 
where they could find it ! Turther, we have to imagine 
half-a-milllon of men going out daily, the 22,000 Levites, 
for a distance of sia^ miles to the suburbs, for the common 
necessities of nature ! The supposition involves, of course, 
an absurdity. But it is our duty to look plain facts in the 
face." 

Dr. irCaul's reply to this is very feeble. He suggests 
that the priests were not personally to do the work, but the 
whole tenor of Leviticus is to the contrary,^ and, as Colenso 
very &irly says, whoever had to do it, the difficulty would 
still remain. 

Chap, v., V. 1. — " And if a soul sin, and hear the voice of 
swearing, and is a witness, whether he hath seen or known 
of it ; if he do not utter it, then he shall bear his iniquity." 
Bellamy makes it — " Moreover, a soul shall surely sin if 
he hear the voice," &c. This verse is by no means clear; 
with Bellamy's improvement, it reads as if a person called 

* Examination of Colenso, p. 33. 



310 



XETITICT7S : 



as a witness was culpable, if lie refrained from stating the 
facts ; but would this mean that the sin would be less if he 
stated the matter, or if he had not been called as witness ? 
Cahen says that, amongst the Hebrews, the witness did 
not swear, but listened to the oath as in most cases of 
sworn testimony. 

Verse 2. — "He also shall be unclean, and guilty/* 
Bellamy says — " This translation strikes the reader with 
an impropriety. No guilt certainly can attach to a person 
who has not consented to the crime, the nature of which was 
hidden from him at the time.'* 

Chap, v., w. 4, 5, and 6 read somewhat differently, and 
are much shorter in the Douay ; " make an atonement for*^ 
is rendered in the Douay, " pray for/* 

Verse 12. — "According to the offerings made by fire 
unto the Lord." Bellamy says — " In this short clause, 
containing only ten words, there are no less than six put 
into the text which have no authority in the original/* 

Verse 13. — "And the remnant shall be the priests,'* see 
chap, ii., V. 3. Bellamy urges that this translation is in- 
correct, and that the whole offering was to be for the priest. 
In the Hebrew, chap. v. has seven verses more, and chap. vi. 
seven verses less. 

Chap, vi., V. 13. — This fire must have been out several 
times, especially since the last conquest of Jerusalem. 
Where is it burning at the present time ? By reference 
to chap, ix., V. 24, and chap, x., w. 1 and 2, it would seem 
either that this fire came from Grod himself, or that there 
was a special sort of fire alone approved. 

" The fire shall constantly "burn on the altar, and shall 
not be extinguished, even during the march ; how ? The 
Eabbi Jehouda says, they covered the fire v^ith a kind of 
fiLre cover ; the Eabbi Schimone says, they covered the fire 
* with cinders." The precepts, adds the Sepher Hamivhar, 
commanded in the desert were for the mo»t part only obli- 
gatory for Palestine. It was the same, it continues, with 
Sie show bread during the stay of the Israelites in the 
desert, where they were sustained with manna, and yet it 
is said : U shall he for Aaron and his sons who shall eat it in 
a hohf place. The Sepher Hamivhar says also, if fire came 



ITS AtJTHEOTlClTt AJH) CKEDIBILm'* 311 

from heaven, what signifies " it shall not be extinguished?" 
Several of the ancient commentators, Jews and Christian, 
attributed to a miracle the continual presence of the fire 
npon the altar. But, says Eosenmuller, such a miracle is 
imaginary. The perpetual fire existed also in the temples 
o( other peoples. The Persians not only adored fire as 
the image of the divinity, but they maintained it constantly" 
on the altar. Says Quintius Curtius, liv. iii. c. 3 — " They 
carried in front upon the altars of silver, the fire which 
they themselves called the sacred perpetual fire." The 
worship of fire, derived from that of the sun, is probably 
the most ancient of worships. Perhaps the fire was con- 
stantly maintained by the Hebrews upon the altar where 
were made the daily sacrifices, in order that the necessary 
fire should never fail from the negligence of the priests."* 
Verse 23. — " For every meat-offering for the priest shall 
be wholly burnt: it shall not be eaten." Bellamy ob- 
serves—*' Surely there is not anything like infinite wisdom 
in thus wantonly destroying every day in all the taber- 
nacles, a great portion of the best provisions in the land ;" 
and he translates this — " Thus every bread offering of th-e 
priest shall be whole, none shall be consumed." We do 
not agree with Mr. Bellamy in his effort to escape from 
the dilemma, but it shows how reliable must be the 
Hebrew, if it be capable of conveying two directly opposite 
meanings. 

Chap, vii., w. 7 to 10. — "As the sin-offering is, so is 
the trespass-offering ; there is one law for them ; the priest 
that maketh atonement therewith shaU have it. And the 
priest which offereth any man's burnt- offering, even the 
priest shaU have to himself the skin of the burnt- offering 
which he hath offered. And aU the meat-offering that is 
baked in the oven, and all that is dressed in the frying- 
pan and in the pan, shall be the priest's that offereth it. 
And every meat-offering, mingled with oil and diy, shall 
all the sons of Aaron have one as much as another." 

Verse 34. — " For the wave breast and the heave shoulder 
have I taken of the children of Israel from off the sacri- 
fices of their peace-offerings, and have given them unto 

* Cahen, Levitique, p. 19. 



812 



LEYITICUS : 



Aaron the priest and unto Ms sons, by a statute for ever 
from among the children of Israel.*' Colenso says* — 
" These last directions are given in the story before Aaron 
and his sons were consecrated. Hence they must be con- 
sidered as intended to apply to them, while the camp was 
in the Wilderness, as well as to the * sons of Aaron ' in 
future generations. Eut what an enormous provision 
was this for Aaron and his four, afterwards two, sons and 
their families ! They were to have the skins of the burnt- 
offerings — and the shoulder and breast (that is, double 
breast) of the peace-offerings, of a congregation of two 
millions of people, for the general use of their three 
families ! But besides these, they were to have the whole 
of the sin-offerings and trespass-offerings except the suet, 
which was to be burnt upon the altar (Leviticus iv., 31, 
35 ; v., 6) and the whole of the meat-offerings, except a 
handful, to be burnt as a memorial (Leviticus ii., 2), and 
all this was to be eaten only hy the three males in the most 
holy place " (Numbers xviii., 10) ! 

And it would seem that they were not at liberty to hum 
the sin-offerings, or consume them in some other way than 
by eating ; they must be " eaten in the holy place." At 
aU events, we find it recorded that Moses, on one occasion, 
diligently sought the goat of the sin-offering, and behold, 
it was burnt ! and he was angry with Eleazar and Ithamar, 
the sons of Aaron, saying. Wherefore have ye not eaten 
the sin-offering in the holy place, seeing it is most holy, 
and Grod hath given it you to bear the iniquity of the con- 
gregation to make atonement for them before Jehovah?" 
Ye should indeed have eaten it in the holy place, as I com- 
manded (Leviticus x., 16 — 20). The very pigeons to be 
brought as sin-offerings for the birth of children, would 
have averaged, according to the story, 264 a day ; and each 
priest would have had to eat daily 88 for his own portion 
" in the most holy place !" Cahen points out in a note to 
Numbers the utter impossibility of Aaron acd his two sons 
alone fulfilling all the priestly duties. 

Chap, vii., v. 13. — " He shaU offer for his offering leavened 
bread." BosenmuUer says — " It may appe ar singular to 
^ Pentateuch, p. 127. 



ITS AUTHENTICITY AND CEEDIBILITY. 313 

find leavened bread prescribed in this verse, while in 
chap, ii., V. 11, it is expressly stated that nothing shall be 
offered as sacrifice which has fermented. 

Verses 23 to 27- — These are cruel and useless laws. The 
punishment of death is strangely disproportioned to the 
offence ; and unless the law has become obsolete, we must 
wonder that Grod allows the manufacturers and consumers 
of articles of food, made from the blood and fat of animals, 
to escape unpunished in the present day. In point of fact, 
while Christians teach that the whole of the Bible is God's 
divine word, there is little of the legislation of the Penta- 
teuch, saving the Decalogue, of which they know any- 
thing. 

Chap, viii., w. 1 to 4. — Bishop Colenso objects* that the 
whole of the congregation could not have been gathered to 
the door of the Tabernacle, but we are inclined rather to 
agree on this point with Dr. Caul's reply than with the 
Bishop's objection.f "We think that the text does not 
mean that all the x^eople were to be within the court. It is 
right to add that some of the Talmudic commentators, who 
ought to know the meaning of the Hebrew, take the same 
view as Dr. Colenso^ and declare that a little space con- 
tained a great multitude. Cahen says that the passage is 
metaphoric, and Aben Ezra argues that it oiily applies to 
the chiefs and elders of the tribes, and Cahen refers to 
Numbers, chap, i., v. 16 ; chap, xvi., v. 2 ; and Joshua, 
chap, xxiv., v. 1. These texts, however, do not meet 
Colenso's argument. 

Chap. viii. — The anointing of Aaron and his sons appears 
to have been recorded already (Exodus, chap, xl.), but this 
narrative is more full. To a civilised unbeliever the 
sprinkling blood on the tip of the right ear, the thumb of 
the right hand, and the great toe of the right foot, seems a 
farce. 

Verse 35.—" Te shall abide at the door." Bellamy 
observes that " it is said in the common version that during 
the seven days of the consecration they were to abide at 
the door of the tabernacle day and night. They were not 
to go forth (verse 33). But it must appear that this would 

* Pentateuch, part i., p. 31. j M'Caul on Colenso, p. 17. 



314 



have been a vei*y awkward place for thein had they remained 
there for such a period, which they were not to leave day 
nor night. This was a thing altogether impossiblej as on 
various occasions they must have necessarily quitted such 
a station." 

Verse 32.—" And that which remaineth of the flesh and 
of the bread shall ye bum with fire.'* Bellamy says— 
" This would have been highly criminal so long as there 
were starving poor in every town to receive it/' 

Chap* ix.j V. 2.— ^Toung calf*'* Bellamy remarks — 
" All calves are young. This is incorrect. The words 
•ipn 'BelS TSeQ^eA, are omitted. They were to take a 
male calfj but no information of this kind is given in the 
common version.'* 

Chap X., v» 1.— * Which he commanded them not.** The 
Douay says—" "Which was not commanded them." The 
latter translation is the most correct. There is no absolute 
prohibition. The story of the death of Nadab and Abihu^ 
who had been previously admitted to G-od's actual presence, 
is a strange one* It looks as if there had been some revolt 
or jealousy amongst the Levites at the special selection of 
Aaron, Ithamar, and Eleazar. The case of Koran, Dathan, 
and Abiram is somewhat similar. The "fire from the 
Lord," which devoured the two sons of Aaron, seems to 
have spared their clothing (see verse 5), " in their coats," 
which reads in the Douay, " vested with linen tunicks." 
Josephus, after mentioning this death of Nadab and 
Abihu, says that to avoid abuse of the divine authority 
Moses " left it to Grod to be present at his sacrifices when 
he pleased and when he pleased to be absent."* 

Verse 9. — " Do not drink wine nor strong drink, thou, 
nor thy sons with thee, when ye go into the tabernacle of 
the congregation, lest ye die ; it shall be a statute for ever 
throughout your generations." Deut., chap, xiv., v. 26. — 
" And thou shalt bestow that money for whatsoever thy 
soul lusteth after ; for oxen, or for sheep, or for wine, or 
for strong drink, or for whatsoever thy soul desireth ; and 
thou shalt eat there before the Lord thy Grod, and thou 
shalt rejoice, thou, and thine household.'* Bellamy says — 
^ Antiquities, Book iii., chap. 8, 



ITS AtTTHEOTICITT AISD CEEDIBILITY. 815 



"The words * strong drink' are altogether indefinite. 
Strong drink is applicable to many liquors which do not 
cause drunkenness. The word ^2W, SheK(?E, which is 
translated strong drink, is not a compound word ; it means 
neither strong nor drink, but literally to satisfy, to satiate. 
It is applied to wine in its first state, or the juice of the 
grape. It means wine that is satiated — that is, the juice 
of the grape satiated — with fermentation, by which pro- 
cess the vinous spirit is produced. 

Chap. xi. — It is difficult to conceive the reason why, ia 
th^ list of articles fit for food, eels should be forbidden as 
having no scales, and classed as unclean with hares and 
swans, while locusts, grasshoppers, and beetles are per- 
mitted. The Douay gives entirely difi'erent names to some 
of the prohibited animals, from those contained in our 
version. 

Cahen confesses that it is impossible in many cases to 
say what birds or animals were intended by the names 
given in the Hebrew. This chapter is with slight variations 
repeated in D enter omy, xiv. 

Yerse 5. — "The coney." The Douay, following the 
Yulgate and the Septuagint, calls it the cherogrillus. 

Yerse 6. — The hare does not chew the cud ; it has not 
the stomach of a ruminant animal.^ 

Yerse 13. — " The eagle, the ossifrage, and the ospray 
the Breeches Bible has " goshawke" instead of ossifrage;'* 
the Douay has the " griffon," but adds in a foot-note, "not 
the monster which painters represent, which hath no being 
upon earth;" the Yulgate, " gryphem ;" Cahen has " the 
eagle, the peresse, and the ozniah." 

Yerse 16. — " And the owl, and the night-hawk, and the 
cuckoo." The Douay has "the ostrich, and the owl, and 
the larus." The Breeches Bible, " the ostrich, the night- 
crow, and sea-mew." Sharpe has " the ostrich, the night- 
hawk, and the falcon." 

Yerse 18. — " And the swan, and the pelican, and the 
gier-eagle." The Douay has " the swan, the bittern, and 
the porphyrion." The Breeches Bible, " The redshanke, 
the pellicane, and the swanne.'* 

* Vide Processor Owen in Letter of Bishop of Natal. 



S16 



LEVITICUS : 



Verses 20 and 21. — "All fowls that creep, going upon 
all four, shall be an abomination unto you. Yet these may 
ye eat, of every flying creeping thing that goeth upon all 
four, which have legs above their feet, to leap withal upon 
the earth." Four-legg^ed fowls and animals which have legs 
anywhere else than above their feet are rare. The Targum 
of Onkelos says "joints " instead of legs. Bellamy repu- 
diates this translation altogether. 

Verse 22. — " Even these of them ye may eat ; the locust 
after his kind, and the bald locust after his kind, and the 
beetle after his kind, and the grasshopper after his kind." 
The Douay says, " That you shall eat as the bruchus in its 
kind, the attacus, and the ophiomachus, and the locust." 
The Breeches Bible, " The grasshopper after his kind, the 
solean after his kind, the hargol after his kind, and the 
hagab after his kind." The last three names are simply 
awkward attempts to anglicise the Hebrew without trans- 
lating. 

Chap. xii. — In translating this chapter, Cahen says that 
he is obliged sometimes to use Latin and to adopt pert- 
phrase, in order to avoid oftending the delicacy of his 
readers, 

Vater says that the difi'erence of time of purification for 
male and female infants arose from the Jewish national 
prejudice, which regarded the woman as less perfect than 
the man. 

Verse 5. — According to Dr. Jennings, the Talmudists 
dispute whether D^i^lti^ Shf^BOIM, in our version rendered 
two weeks, should not be 70 days. 

Chap, xiii., w. 47 and 48. — The garment also that the 
plague of leprosy is in, whether it be a woollen garment or 
a linen garment. "Whether it be in the warp or woof, of 
linen, or of woollen, whether in a skin, or any thing made 
of skin." " This," says Cahen, quoting also certain Eab- 
binical writers,^' is not according to the order of nature any 
more than the plagues of the houses ; it is a miracle from a 
special providence, for the Israelites, to turn them from 
evil doing, of which these evils are the chastisement. This 
kind of supernatural explanation amounts to declaring that 
one knows nothing about it. KosenmuUer says — ' It is 



ITS ATJTHEOTICITY AND CBEDIBILITT. 317 

difficult to form an idea of this kind of leprosy, even in 
attributing it to the wool taken from animals dead of some 
disease. In the skins the scurf and irruption are less 
extraordinary, above all when they have been badly pre- 
pared, if the hair has been left on, as is common in the 
East. It is extremely difficult to determine what this 
leprosy was, several consider it as similar to that of the 
body.' Moses would have thus prohibited the clothing 
containing the leprous poison proceeding from the living 
body. Nevertheless this opinion is contested. What is 
the necessity, asks Kebenstreit, for a special law when the 
leper himself was banished from all human society, and 
everything upon him was declared impure ? Besides, more 
than this, the lawgiver declares equally impure the leprosy 
of the cloth and linen, as it may have attacked the weft 
and the cord, or both ; he recognises also that it might 
happen that one part of the stuff might be attacked by the 
contagion, while the other remained intact. It would be 
difficult to say how a leprous cloth could become contagious. 
We cannot conceive how the same stuff could be made of 
different materials and more or less tainted, since it was 
forbidden to the Jews to have clothing of mixed linen and 
wool. (Leviticus xix., 19 ; Deuteronomy xxii., 11). The 
virulence of the leprosy might certainly have invaded all 
the clothing made of one simple texture, be it wool alone, 
or linen. We know at the present time in different diseases 
the clothing of the sick is so much corrupted that it 
presents a certain danger to the healthy persons who may 
clothe themselves with it. In these diseases, nevertheless, 
the virus does not affect the cloth entirely, and does not 
stop in the warp only or in the woof: there is no virus 
which extends itself after the clothing is taken from the 
sick person. Even the black matter of the mortified and 
dried-up parts in cancer, never goes farther than into that 
part of the stuff which has first touched it. If it is thus, I 
do not know that the word contagion can be applied to 
that blemish in the clothing which Moses calls leprosy. I 
believe rather that this word has passed metaphorically 
from a living body to an inanimate one ; it is a license 
which we permit ourselves sometimes; as we say that the 



318 



lEYITICTJS : 



trees and stones are eaten by tlie cancer, wlien some 
humidity or some putrid influence caused by the atmos- 
phere has corrupted them. As to the leprosy of the cloth, 
Michaelis thinks that the wool might be infected with 
leprosy, when it proceeds from sheep wasted by diseases or 
only sick. Generally this species of wool is harsh and 
useless, and cloths made of such a material are easily worn 
out, and those who clothe themselves with it run great 
danger. It is the same with the leprosy of skins, of which 
Moses speaks. I think, adds the author whom we cite, 
that it was that which takes place, for the skins of other 
animals dead of disease or old age, above all the skins of 
oxen, where that is common in the contagions of herds. 
These skins are brittle, appearing often half-eaten up, and 
are not a little hurtful to health. Yet it appears to us 
more simple to regard the whole as preventive measures of 
hygiene, very exaggerated, and of which we find nowhere 
else any application in the Holy Scriptures.'** 

Chap, xiv., V. 34. — " "When ye be come into the land of 
Canaan, which I give to you for a possession, and I put the 
plague of leprosy in a house of the land of your possession." 
The species of leprosy which we are about to describe is, 
according to Aben Ezra, the effect of a miracle. It is sin- 
gular that laws should have been made for a supernatural 
thing, and which could not be foreseen. Grueddes remarks 
that it may well be a question here of an eruption of salt- 

etre, which in our countries is not hurtful to health. 

ome think that it concerns a leprosy which has passed 
from living bodies to the walls, which is improbable, since 
the leprous were submitted to the inspection of the priest 
on the appearance of the first spots which announced the 
leprosy. Others say that it refers to a nitrous efflorescence, 
but the description which the text presents seems rather 
to relate to the lichens with which the stones were covered, 
with which some simulate completely a leprosy. Jar'hi 
makes upon this verse a singular remark — it is an 
announcement, says he, that a malady will come which will 
make known to the Israelites the treasures which th= 
Amorites have hidden in the walls during the forty yeart; 
* Cahen, Levitique, p. 53. 



ITS ATJTHEXTICITY AKD CEEDIBILITY. S19 



wandering of tlie Israelites in tlie desert. "We see according 
to that that the leprosy of houses is unexplained and unex- 
plainable ; the leprosy of men relates to the nomad state — ^ 
it is a question but of camps and tents ; the leprosy of 
walls is traced to the sedentary state, for it is known that 
it is principally during this state that the sacerdotal ordi- 
nations were enacted, but feebly executed."^ 

Chap, xir., v. 49. — Two birds." The Douay says " two 
sparrows;" and, according to verse 4, it appears that it was 
" lawful to eat" sparrows, although, as sparrows fed upon 
the unclean creeping things forbidden in chap, xi., they 
ought, under that chapter, to have been unclean also. 

Chap. XV, — Cahen says — " In this chapter we are again 
obliged to occasionally use the Latin," in order to avoid 
giving unnecessary offence whilst conserving the literal 
rendering. Cahen, after mentioning that many of the 
commandments that are given in Leviticus are such as 
could not have been carried out, refers to Ezekiel, chap, xx., 
V. 2d — " Wherefore I gave them also statutes that were 
not good, and judgments whereby they should not live." 

Chap, xvi., V. 8. — And Aaron shall cast lots upon the 
two goats ; one lot for the Lord, and the other lot for the 
scapegoat." In lieu of " scapegoat" the Douay has 
"emissary goat." The word in the Hebrew is b'li^'\X\ 
OZAZeL, Azazel. G-esenius says — ^' By this name I sup- 
pose to be understood originally some idol, to be appeased 
13}^ sacrifices, as Saturn and Mars ; afterwards I suppose 
from the names of idols being often applied to demons, 
this name was used for that of an evil demon inhabiting 
the wilderness, who had to be appeased by sacrifices by 
this very ancient and Gentile rite."t According toj Aben 
Ezra, Azazel is the name of a demon, to appease whom an 
offering was sent ; this view being supported by certain 
Eabbinical writers and by the Book of Enoch. It appears 
probable to us that Azazel is the name of one of these 
demons inhabiting devastated places, and named for that 
reason Shedim, from shud, to devastate; as there was 
another species of demon living in the woods, a species of 

* Caben, Levitique, p. 59. f Lexicon, p. 617. 

J Bresslau's Lexicon, p. 429 ; but see Simonis, p. 1173, 



320 



LEYITICUS : 



Pan, satyrs. This name is not unknown to the cabalist^, 
Azazel is, according to the Zohar, one of the fallen angels^ 
and precipitated into hell. There are Aza and Azael. It 
is this that we read also in the Ethiopian book attributed 
to Henoch. The opinion of Hiskouni is that it concerns 
here the angel of death, Samael. (They pretend to derive 
this word from b^D ID, SeR MAL, " he turned himself from 
Grod.'') Perhaps in admitting an easy translation made 
designedly, one might read ]]^, OZeZ AL, the god Azaz, 
a name which has a singular conformity to the Isis of the 
Egyptians. However that may be, it appears that we dis- 
cover here the remains of two origins of worship so ancient, 
Maimonides avoids explaining himself. " Be it on account 
of the weakness of our understanding," says he^ " be it 
because of the imperfection of our wisdom, it is impossible 
for us to know the reason of this sacrifice " (More ISTeb, 
part iii., chap. 26). Aben Ezra, in his usual manner when 
he experiences embarrassment, enounces in oracular style : 
" If thou art capable of understanding the mystery of 
Azazel, thou will learn also the mystery of his name ; for 
he has similar associates in the Scriptures. I will tell thee 
by allusion a part of the mystery. When thou art thirty- 
three years old thou will understand us." He finishes 
abruptly, without speaking allegoric ally or otherwise.* 

Chap, xvi., VY. 21 and 22. — " And Aaron shall lay both 
his hands upon the head of the live goat, and confess over 
him all the iniquities of the children of Israel, and all their 
transgressions in all their sins, putting them upon the head 
of the goat, and shall send him away, by the hand of a fit 
man, into the wilderness : and the goat shall bear upon 
him all their iniquities into a land not inherited, and he 
shall let go the goat into the wilderness." The absurdity 
of this injunction is heightened by the inutility, for I do 
not find that the Israelites were ever let off from any 
punishment by reason of the scapegoat. 

The Egyptians had a similar custom, as we learn from 
Herodotus, Euterpe 2, chap. 39, who relates it in these 
words : — " After they have killed the victim, they cut off 
its head, but they flay the anima rs body, after which, having 
* Cahen, Levitique, p. 68. 



ITS AtJTHENTlCITY ATO CHEDIBlLITT, 



821 



pronounced many imprecations on the head, those who 
have a market and G-recian merchants dwelling among 
fchem, carry it thither and sell it to them ; but those who 
have no Grecian residents to sell it to, throw the head into 
the fire, pronouncing over it the following imprecations : 
— 'If any evil is about to befall either those that now 
sacrifice, or Egypt in general, may it be averted on this 
head!''' "The two customs, though not perfectly the 
same, are so far similar that the one appears to have been 
derived from the other. The import of both is certainly 
the same : for in both the animal sacrificed is made use of 
as a substitute to draw away calamity from the party 
sacrificing ; in the one case being sent into the mlderness, 
and in the other consumed by fire." 

Verse 21. — Putting them upon the head," the Douay 
has, " Praying that they may light upon his head." Cahen, 
whose translation slightly difi'ers, says — " There is here a 
very remarkable distinction, the sins of the sacerdotal class 
and those of the people towards their statutes and temples 
are redeemed expKcitly and wholly, Grod accepts the sacri- 
fice ; but the other sins of the people are not expressly 
redeemed, God does not accept the sacrifice, they send the 
living goat to Azazel." 

Chap, xvii., vv. 3, 4, 5, and 6. — " What man soever there 
be of the house of Israel that killeth an ox, or lamb, or 
goat, in the camp, or that killeth it out of the camp, and 
bringeth it not unto the door of the tabernacle of the con- 
gregation, to offer an ofi'ering unto the Lord before the 
tabernacle of the Lord, blood shall be imputed unto that 
man ; he hath shed blood ; and that man shall be cut off 
from among his people. To the end that the children of 
Israel may bring their sacrifices which they ofi*er in the 
open field, even that they may bring them unto the Lord, 
imto the door of the tabernacle of the congregation, unto 
the priest, and off*er them for peace-ofierings unto the 
Lord. And the priest shall sprinkle the blood upon the 
altar of the Lord at the door of the tabernacle of the con- 
gregation, and burn the fat for a sweet savour unto the 
Lord." The absurdity of this command will be apparent 
upon the slightest examination. If the Jews were as 



822 



LEYiTicirs : 



numerous as is represented when in Egypt, and continued 
to increase and multiply in the same ratio, they would have 
filled a very large portion of the earth's surface ; but even 
allowing for Biblical exaggeration, it would have been im- 
possible for a people, amounting to several hundreds of 
thousands, to have all slaughtered their cattle at one spot 
(the door of the Tabernacle) ; and if they had done so, 
judging from the appearance and odour of modem slaughter- 
houses, the " holiest of holies" would have hardly been at 
the same time " the sweetest of sweets." It would have 
been still more impossible for each individual to have 
brought (perhaps from a distance of several miles) each an 
ox, lamb, or goat killed. It is not at all probable, in a 
nation so ignorant as the Jews, that the people possessed, 
carts and waggons for the purpose of transporting the dead 
cattle to and fro, and if they had, the waste of labour would 
have been enormous. The severe penalty of death is all 
that is required to make this essentially one of " God's 
laws." "What would be said if all the slaughtered cattle 
in England were, by Act of Parliament, compelled, under 
penalty of death, to be brought to the door of St. Paul's 
Cathedral to have the fat and blood taken from them ? 
Colenso, who has submitted these verses to an elaborate 
comment, applying them to the texts affecting the 
Passover lambs, asks how these commands could have been 
complied with, when 150,000 lambs would have had to be 
killed by 150,000 people in the short space of two hours.* 
Verse 7. — " And they shall no more offer their sacri- 
fices unto devils, after whom they have gone a whorinor.'* 
Chap, xix., vv. 26 and 31 ; chap, xx., vv. 6 and 27 ; 
Deut. c. xxxii., v. I7.t What are devils ? If God is the 
Creator of all things, did he create devils ? If so, it is 
scarcely just to punish us for falling victims to devils, whom 
God must have made sufficiently powerful to tempt us to 
the commission of crime. If otherwise, are devils inde- 
pendent existences ; because in that case the Deity is 
neither omnipotent nor infinite. Many Theists are now in- 

* See Pentateuch, part i., p. 42 ; 2 Chronicles, c xxix. and c. xxxv. 
t See Exodus, p 256; J. P. Smith's '•Christian Theology Farmer 
on the demoniacs.'* 



ITS AUTHEKTICITY A2sD CEEDIBILITT. 



323 



clined to admit that they are neitlier ; and that devils, 
angels, gods, familiar spirits and demons, all stand in the 
same mythological position. Thej belong to the past, not 
to the present. They belong to the age of ignorance, not 
of inquiry. We find in such verses as these the clue to the 
superstitious fear with which the inhabitants of some little 
\illages still regard certain old men and women ; and the 
clue to the persecutions for witchcraft. Strong objections 
have been urged against the doctrine of devils, demons, and 
familiar spirits. It is said by Theists that it is contrary to 
all natural conceptions of the benevolence and mercy of 
the Deity that he should have created, and should sustain 
in existence, beings of the highest intellectual order to 
be the subjects of eternal misery themselves, and causes of 
it to all humanity. It is further urged that the doctrine 
detracts from the power of Grod by holding forth an almost 
omnipotent chief of a legion of powerful and mischievous 
devils, all bent on the destruction of mankind. It is further, 
and very reasonably, urged that the Jews, especially after 
their connection with the Chaldean and Persian nations, 
had imbibed very extended, and, at the same time, very 
puerile ideas with, regard to the operations of both good 
and bad spirits. The properties of plants, of mineral waters, 
of minerals, of certain climatic conditions, the existence of 
any remarkable phenomena, the insanity of men, or animals, 
were all, in ancient times, attributed to the presence and 
influence of good and bad spirits. Science has exploded 
these errors ; and, in exploding them, has also impeached 
most severely the pretended divine revelation in which they 
w^ere sustained. Bellamy translates the -"to devils*' as 

before goats," and says that the word translated de\ils 
has no such meaning in any part of Scripture. He points 
out that the same word is rendered " satyrs," in Isaiah xiii., 
v. 21 ; and c. xxxiv., v. 14. The word translated " devils," 
Cahen does not translate at all ; but writes Seirime, whict. 
is simply trying to give corresponding letters for thi^ 
Hebrew word Sl^rd^ (ShOIEeM.)* 

Aquila says, "The shaggy ones ;" others say, " the satyrs.'* 
It refers here doubtless to some foreign Deity ; the phrase 
* Levitique, p. 78. 



324 



LEYITICUS : 



wHcli follows makes this supposition probable, and one is 
led to think of Pan, of fauns, especially if we reflect that 
goats were generally adored among the Egyptians, prin- 
cipally at Thebes — see Herod, Euterpe, p. 42. The dif- 
ferent explanations which we have given agree as to the goat, 
and it appears that the Israelites had followed these irre- 
gularities with which Amos reproaches them in his day 
(c. v., V. 25). At any rate, it would be difficult to say any 
thing determinate, whether upon the nature of the sacri- 
fice, or upon the manner of making it. The Targums give 
the word as "demons," and Mendelsohn says Waldteufeln, 
or wood demons. It seems always certain that the object 
of the institution of sacrifices was to deter the Israelites 
from sacrificing to the sylvan gods (see More Neb ouch, 
part 3, chap. 46). It concerned also the maintenance of 
the power of the Levites. 

Chap, xviii., v, 21. — "And thou shalt not let any of thy 
seed pass through the fire to Molech, neither shalt thou 
profane the name of thy God : I am the Lord.'' The texts 
in which references to Molech occur are chap, xx., v. 2 ; 
1 Kings c. xi., v. 7 j 2 Kings c. xxiii., v. 10 ; Jeremiah c. 
xxxii., V. SS."^ 

The Eabbins assure usf that this idol was of brass sitting 
upon a throne of the same metal, adorned with a royal 
crown, having the head of a calf and his arms extended as 
if to embrace any one. "When they would offer any children 
to him, they heated the statue within by a great fire, and, 
when it was burning hot, they put within his arms the 
miserable victim, which was soon consumed by the violence 
of the heat ; and that the cries of the children might not 
be heard, they made a great noise with drums and other 
instruments about the idol. Others relate that the idol 
was hollow, and within it were contrived seven partitions, 
one of which was appointed for meal, or flour, in the second 
there were turtles, in the third an ewe, in the fourth a 
ram, in the fifth a calf, in the sixth an ox, and in the 
seventh a child. All these were burned together by heat- 
ing the statue in the inside. It appears from the sub- 

* See Commentary on Exodus, p. 268. 
Parkhurst Lexicon, p. 401. 



ITS ArTHEOTICITT AND CEEDIBILITT. 



825 



stance of this idol, whicli was brass, or copper, from its 
having the head of a calf, the animal emblem of fire, from its 
being divided into seven partitions, ansTrering to the seven 
planetary spheres or orbits (or according to others having 
seven chapels before it), and from the horrid rites per- 
formed to it, that it was intended as a representative of 
the solar fire. This is further confirmed bv its name "ip::d 
(MeLeK), king; for as a king in his political capacity 
acteth where he is or not by means of others, so the solar 
fire in this system doth, in some sense, act where it is not, 
by means of the light which it is continually sending forth, 
and putting in motion. Add to this, that the apparent 
spring of material action is in the fire. 

It has been doubted whether in that shocking rite of 
making their children pass through the fire, making them 
enter in or by the fire, to Molech, they were always burnt 
to death or not. Whoever will attentively consider the 
following passages in the Hebrew Bible, wlLL be strongly 
inclined to the affirmative. (See Ezek. xvi., 20, 21 ; xx., 
25, 26, 31 ; xxiii., 37 ; compare Jer. xxxii., 35, with chap, 
yii., 31.) Eusebius quotes from Diodorus Siculus, a passage 
so apposite to our present purpose, that the judicious 
reader cannot be displeased at seeing a translation of it in 
this place. It relates to the Carthagenians when besieged 
by Agathocles, Tyrant of Sicily. " They imputed this 
calamity," says Diodorus, "to Saturn's fighting against 
them ; for whereas they used, in former times, to sacrifice 
the best of their o^^tl children to this God, they had lately 
off'ered such children as they had privately purchased and 
brought up ; and on inquiry, some of those who have been 
sacrificed were found to be suppositious. Eeflecting, there- 
fore, on these things, and seeing the enemy encamped at 
their very walls, they were seized with a religious dread, 
as having profaned those honours, which their ancestors 
paid to the Grods. In haste, then, to rectify their errors, 
they chose out two hundred of the noblest children, and 
sacrificed them publicly. Other persons, who were accused 
of irreligion, gave up themselves willingly to the number 
of no less than three hundred. Eor they had a brazen 
statue of Saturn stretching out his hands towards the 



4P 



826 LEVITICUS : 

ground in sucL. a manner tliat the child placed within them 
tumbled down into a pit full of fire." 

Thus Diodorus, whose description of the idol, and of the 
manner of these infernal sacrifices, it must be confessed, 
differs somewhat from the Rabbinical account above cited. 
And, indeed, what can be more probable than that, at dif- 
ferent times and places, there should be some variations in 
both these respects ?" 

" I take* Molech and Baal to be," says Grodwyn, " one 
and the same idol, they were both names of supremacy and 
rule. Baal signifieth a Lord or Master — and Molech, a 
King or Prince. They had both the same manner of 
sacrifice, they burnt their sons for burnt-offerings unto 
Baal likewise (Jer. xix., 5). Tea, they built the high places 
of Baal, which are in the valley of Benhinnom, to cause 
their sons and their daughters to pass through the fire 
unto Molech. Jerem. xxxii. 35. In which text the place 
of sacrifice is noted to be one and the same, common to 
both idols, and Molech put in the end of the verse, to ex- 
plain Baal in the beginning thereof. Some think them to be 
different, because the Planet Jupiter was worshipped under 
the name of Baal ; but the planet Saturn is probably 
thought to have been worshipped under the name of Molech. 
If we diligently observe histories, we shall find such a 
confusion of the planets, that the sun, as it was sometimes 
called Baal, sometimes Molech : so it was sometimes called 
Jupiter, sometimes Saturn ; and concerning Baal, this is 
endent: hence Jupiter was called by the Phoenicians, 
Baal-samen, which name is derived from the Hebrew, 
and soundeth as much as Jupiter Olympicus, the Lord of 
Heaven ; for Baal signifieth Lord, and Shamain, heaven. 
And what is this Lord of Heaven in the theology of the 
Heathens, other than the Sun? who may as weU be 
styled the King of Heaven, as the Moon the Queen. Tea, 
Sanchoniatho, as Eusebius in the forequoted place relates 
him, taketh all these three for one — namely, the Sun, 
Jupiter, and Baal-samen." 

Verse 4. — " Turn ye not unto idols, nor make to your- 
selves molten gods: I am the Lord your Grod." The 
* Godwyn's Hebrew Rites, p. 143, 



ITS ArTHE]S*T-IGITT ASB CEEDIEILITT. 827 

manufacture of " molten" gods must be comparatively 
modern. The Deitv must have allowed idolatry a long 
existence if the Mosaic prohibition was the first. A writer 
in the Westminster Review^ says : — " The Egyptians, as we 
gather from Herodotus, were the first idolators, and their 
early temples, according to another authority, had no 
statue in them* Pre^'ious to this time, and long after, they 
appear to have worshipped the one God — a being without 
name, without figure, incorporeal, immutable, infinite, the 
origin and source of all things, and who was to be adored 
in silence. The ancient Persians worshipped fire as the 
symbol of the Deity (Hyde, de Veterum Per s arum), and 
their sacrifices were made, not in temples or to images, but 
on the top of lofty mountains. In the temples of the 
Chaldeans, at Babylon, there was no statue even so late as 
the days of Herodotus; and for a hundred and seventy 
years after the foundation of Eome there was not a statue 
in any temple at Eome. In the early books of the Bible 
we find that the religion of Abraham was no new or 
astounding doctrine in that remote age. Melchizedek, 
King of Salem, in Canaan, was a 'priest of the most High 
Grod and Abimelech, King of Grerar, in Palestine, recog- 
nised the Almighty in a dream, and, with reference to his 
own subjects, exclaimed, ' Lord, wilt thou also slay a 
righteous nation ?' The Arab Job, Jethro the Midianite, 
and Balaam the Syrian, were all acquainted with the true 
God. 

" But with limits like ours, it is impossible to indulge in 
any speculations on that dark period which precedes the 
first faint dawning of history. The Jewish doctors, indeed, 
are kind enough to point out the very individual by whose 
means idolatry was introduced into the world, and a firm 
faith in their dictum would save much trouble. According 
to the Eabbi Moses Ben Maimon, Enos, discoursing on 
the splendour of the heavenly bodies, insisted that, since 
God had thus exalted them above the other parts of crea- 
tion, it was but reasonable that we should praise, extol, and 
honour them. The consequence of this exhortation, says 
the Eabbi, was the building of temples to the stars, and t he 
* Vol. xii., p. 43. 



328 



LEYITICTJS : 



establishment of idolatry throughout the world. By the r 
Arabian divines, however, the imputation is laid upon the 
patriarch Abraham, who, they say, on coming out from the 
dark cave in which he had been brought up, was so astonished 
at the sight of the stars that he worshipped Hesperus, the 
moon, and the sun successively as they rose. These two 
stories are very good illustrations of the origin of myths 
by means of which even the most natural sentiment is 
traced to its cause in the circumstances of fabulous history. 
But the Arab Job, without thinking it necessary to inquire 
into the sources of his feelings, explains the philosophy of 
early idolatry in a few simple and beautiful words. *If,' 
says he, * I gazed upon Orus (the sun) when he was 
shining, or upon Tarecha (the moon) when rising in her 
glory, and my heart went secretly after them, and my hand 
kissed my mouth, I should have denied the Grod that is 
above.' 

" The pious Arab here points to what the Easterns tell us 
is the most ancient religion in the world. This, the 
Arab historian Haragi says, consisted in the belief of the 
eternity of the world, governed by a co-eternal mind whose 
symbol was fire. The apparent, or material source of fire, 
was the sun, to which, as well as to the moon and the stars, 
as partakers of the same celestial nature, a proportioned 
reverence was due. The chief seat of this religion was in 
Haram, on the Chaldean border, where the grand temple 
of the Sabeans was on the top of a hill. The words, 
Haranite and Sabean, came thus to be used as equivalent 
terms. We have now almost lost sight of the original 
tradition ; and the revelations of the Deity are made to 
mankmd through the stars " walking in brightness," and 
the various phenomena and influences of nature. The 
worship of the mysterious element of fire soon gives place 
to that of its material fountain, the sun ; the whole host of 
heaven gradually became immortal powers ; the entire 
world is a reflex of Grod, and Grod is adored in that world 
which thus reveals him to man. Thus primitive religion 
becomes a Pantheism. At first, the style of religious in- 
struction would be plain, concise, even abrupt, to suit the 
simplicity of the dogmas; but afterwards, as Pausanias 



ITS ATJTHEXTICITY AK3> CKEDIBILITT. 329 



relates of early G-reeee, the priests would begin to envelop 
their ideas in enigmatical forms. The same diversity of 
intellect, which at the present day causes the component 
parts of even civilised society to resemble different races of 
men, must have existed from the beginning; some 
magnificent minds, towering above the common boundaries 
of knowledge, would lift up the veil of nature ; while the 
vulgar, grasping as it were only the outside of their 
thoughts, would materialise their most refined ideas, and 
multiply the number of gods till the Pantheism arrived at 
the axiom of the Grreeks, Everything is the image of the 
Deity." Hence the esoteric and exoteric doctrines ; the 
priests would speak a diff'erent language to the wise and to 
the ignorant ; his meaning would be addressed to the 
initiated, and its enigmatical form of communication to the 
multitude. The time was passed when God talked face to 
face with man, but the same need of such inter-communi- 
cation remained ; and in the flight of birds, the entrails of 
beasts, and the thousand other omens so dear to ignorant 
credulity, the ^ill of heaven would be manifested to man- 
kind. Symbols, or the images of ideas, must thus have 
been of very early invention; and the obscurity of the 
symbolical mode of teaching is the consequence of the 
difficulty of reducing idea to form. The myth speedily 
followed, and was at first, perhaps, intended to explain or 
illustrate the symbols ; subsequently it was used in the 
biography of personages who were supposed to partake 
of the sanctity of the symbol ; and finally was understood 
to mean ancient tradition as contradistinguished from 
history. 

" The heroes of the myths were probably at first 
imaginary beings — personifications of the powers of nature; 
and as man can only reason from what he knows, their 
constitution and attributes must have been borrowed from 
his own. The earth, that fertile womb from which he saw 
new or renewed creation springing every day, became a 
female, the Mighty Mother, the Eternal Spouse ; and the 
heavens, whose powers were concentrated in the sun, were 
the original male — the principal of life and fecundity. The 
grand distinction of sex was preserved throughout the 



330 



LEYITICUS : 



whole system. "When Nature came to be personified, not 
as a whole, but in her attributes, every god had either a 
wife or a mistress ; and in the heat, the thunder, the storm, 
and the volcano, the mythologist found materials for the 
discords, rapes, and adulteries of the . immortals, but too 
closely analogous with the crimes and sufferings of man- 
kind. In fine these distinctions were concentrated, as it 
were, in two emblems, called the Lingam and the Yoni by 
the Hindoos, and the Phallus and Cteis by the Greeks, 
and observable in a greater or less degree in every system 
of mythology. 

" But the mere fa^t of conferring a name upon an abstract 
idea, and attaching an almost human history to it, was not 
sufficient. The vulgar, with something like the scepticism 
of St. Thomas, required to see and feel ; and visible and 
tangible images were, therefore, presented to their brute 
senses. These, at first, were rude stones or columns, for 
religion had precedence in point of time of the arts ; but 
as mythological story took hold of the imaginations of men, 
they were seized with the desire of fashioning their blocks 
in imitation of their gods : and hence, we presume, the 
beginning of sculpture. "CTnchiseled stones, according to 
Pausanias, were the first images of the gods of the Grreeks ; 
and the Phoenicians, the Megareans, the ancient Arabs, and 
the Jews, were once plunged in the same rude idolatry. 

Verse 31. — " Eegard not them that have familiar spirits, 
neither seek after wizards.'* See also chap, xx., v. 6. The 
Douay is, " Gro not aside after wizards, neither ask after 
soothsayers." Bellamy, " Te shall not turn to the serpents, 
moreover after the wizards ye shall not seek." Cahen, 
" Turn not towards the oboth and seek not the yidonime," 
— that is, he does not translate either of the words. The 
Septuagint has in lieu of "oboth," "ventriloquists;" and 
Gresenius observes that this is a correct rendering, because 
ventriloquists amongst the ancients commonly abused this 
axt of inward speaking for magical purposes. Cahen says 
that the word mni^^ ATJBUTh, signifies leathern bottles for 
holding water; and Parkhurst adds that they were so 
called from being remarkably capable of distension or 

swelling.^ 

* But see Bellamy, New Translation, p. 333. 



rrS AtTTHE^TICITT A2a) CEEDIEILITT. 331 



In Chap. XX., V. 27, the word AUB, of whicli Aubeth 
is the plural, is in our version again rendered, familiar 
spirit." Gresenius asks, '* how could it be that the same 
Hebrew word should express a bottle and a ventriloquist ? 
Apparently from the magician when possessed with the 
demon, being as it were a bottle or vessel, and sheath of 
this pvthon." 

Chap, xxi., vv. 17, 18.—'' Speak unto Aaron, saying, Who- 
soever he he of thy seed in their generations that hath an^/ 
blemish let him not approach to offer the bread of his God : 
For whatsoever man he he that hath a blemish, he shall not 
approach ; a blind man, or a lame, or he that hath a flat 
nose, or any thing superfluous." The Douay says, "if he 
have a little, a great, or a crooked nose." Bellamy says 
the word translated " flat nose" has no such meaning in any 
part of Scripture, and that it is surprising how such a notion 
could enter into the minds of the translators ; he makes the 
verse read, blind, or lame, or defective, or unnatural." 

Verses 19—21. — Or a man that is broken-footed, or 
broken-handed. Or crook-backt, or a dwarf, or that hath a 
blemish in his eye, or be scurvy, or scabbed, or hath his stones 
broken : no mm that hath a blemish of the seed of Aaron 
the priest shall come nigh to offer the offerings of the Lord 
made by fire ; he hath a blemish, he shall not come nigh to 
offer the bread of his G-od." Here the disability is eon- 
fined to the Levite, but in Deuteronomy, chap, xxiii., y. 1, 
it is more general. 

Chap, xxii., vv. 12 and 13. — " If the priest's daughter also 
be married unto a stranger, she may not eat of the offering 
of the holy things. But if the priest's daughter be a widow, 
or divorced, and have no child, and is returned unto her 
father's house, as in her youth, she shall eat of her father's 
meat ; but there shall be no stranger eat thereof." 

So that if the priest's daughter were left a destitute 
widow, with a child or children, her father was not to per- 
mit her to eat of his meat. 

Chap, xxiii., v. 43. — '-That your generations may know 
that I made the children of Israel to dwell in booths, when 
I brought them out of the land of Egypt ; I am the Lord 
your God." 

The Douay renders booths " as tabernacles," but itren- 



332 



LETITICUS : 



ders the same Hebrew word in v. 42 as bowers.'^ Cahen 
gives " cabanes," huts, and says of ^* what huts do they speak 
here ? When were they made One rabbinical writer sug- 
gests, that God caused the huts suddenly to come out of the 
earth for the Israelites. Mendelsohn rises against this idea, 
and quite puts it aside. He cannot conceive how any one 
can take upon himself to fabricate so strange a miracle of 
which no one else has ever thought. But what more would 
it be if one had thought of it ? (See Gramberg, v. i. p. 290.) 

Chap, xxiv., V. 7. — After the words *^pure frankincense/* 
the Septuagint adds, " and salt." 

Verses 15 and 16. — This reads as if, first, a prohibition 
against cursing the God of any individual; and 2nd, a prohibi- 
tion against blaspheming Jehovah. 

Chap, XXV., V. 30. — The house that is in the walled city/' 
Spinoza draws attention to the marginal reading, which 
runs the house that is not in the walled city.''* Bellamy 
says, In this clause the translators have omitted translat- 
ing the negative L. A. ; i.e. not ; and have followed 
the bold example of those called the Keri Translators, or 
those who, when they could not otherwise make sense of the 
passage as written by the sacred writers, have rejected cer- 
tain words.'' 

Chap. XXV., vv. 30 to 43, are in contradiction to Exodus 
chap, xxi., verse 2. There the Hebrew slave was to be free 
the seventh year, but according to this he is held till the year 
of jubilee. 

Verses 44 to 46 — ^'Both thy bondmen and thy bondmaids, 
which thou shalt have, shall be of the heathen that are round 
about you ; of them shall ye buy bondmen and bondmaids. 
Moreover, of the children of the strangers that do sojourn 
among you, of them shall ye buy, and of their families that 
are with you, which they begat in your land ; and they shall 
be your possession. And ye shall take them as an inheri- 
tance for your children after you, to inherit them for a pos- 
session ; they shall be your bondmen for ever ; but over your 
brethren the children of Israel ye shall not rule one over ano- 
ther with rigour," The slave dealingf here legalised, 
appears to have become a regular trade. Ezekiel, chap, 

♦ Tractatus Theologico Politicus, cap 9. § 38. 

t See also Exodus, p. 251, and Jeremiah, c. xxxiv., v. 9, 



ITS AUTHENTICITY AKD CEEDIBILITT. 



333 



xxvii., V. 13, speaks of the trade in " the persons of men." 
Bellamy, ashamed of this disgraceful passage, seeiis most 
ineffectually to explain away the meaning of the text. 

Chap, xxvi., verse 12 — And I will walk among you, and 
will be your God, and ye shall be my people." Cahen says, 

The ancients believed that each nation had its Deity. 
Jehovah is here announced as the national God of the 
Hebrews, the special God of Palestine." 

Verse 42 — Then will I remember my covenant with 
Jacob, and also my covenant with Isaac, and also my 
covenant with Abraham will I remember ; and I will remem- 
ber the land." The covenant with Abraham in Genesis, 
chap. xvii», verse 8 ; with Isaac chap, xxvi., v. 3 ; and with 
Jacob, chap, xxviii., v. 13, is explicit and unconditional. 
The descendants of these three are to be as numerous as the 
dust of the earth, and are to inherit Canaan for ever. 

" Jacob." God appears to have forgotten that by Genesis, 
chap. XXX vi., v. 10, he changed the name to Israel. 

All the promises and denunciations of this chapter bear 
relation to this life, and Cahen says, that the belief in a 
future state was introduced long aiter the confection of the 
Pentateuch, wherein no trace is found of such a belief.* 

Chap, xxvii. — De "Wette says that it is evident that the 
addition of this chapter is an after thought ; for the book is 
brought to a regular epic conclusion, by the promises and 
denunciations in chap, xxvi., and still more by the formula, 

* These are the statutes and judgments and laws which 
Jehovah made between him and the children of Israel in 
Mount Sinai, by the hand of Moses.' Or, what is, perhaps, 
as probable, the book originally ended with this formula ap- 
pended to chap. XXV. ; for chap, xxvi., 3^46, bears marks of 
a very recent origin— even later than the captivity. The 
threat, verse 34, * Then shall the land enjoy her Sabbaths 
as long as it lieth desolate, and ye be in your enemies' 
land because it did not rest in your Sabbaths when ye 
dwelt in it;' and verse 43 must have been written after 
Jer. XXV. 11, — where the captivity of seventy years is threat- 
ened; and 2 Ch. xxxvi. 21^ which says the captivity lasted 

* until the land had enjoyed her Sabbaths; for as long as 



* Preface to Numbers. 



yd 



334 



LETITICUS : 



she lay desolate, she kept Sabbath, to fulfil three score and 
ten years.*' Perhaps the book ended originally with chap, 
xxv., to which the formula xxvi. 46, was appended/'* 

Chap, xxvii., v. 29.— None devoted, which shall be 
devoted of men, shall be redeemed; but shall surely be put 
to death," The commentators give themselves much trouble 
to soften this terrible sentence. According to Jar'hi, it 
concerns a man condemned to death, when he may not be 
delivered from it for money ; according to others, it is neces- 
sary that the person should be consi'ined to it by public 
authority and not by a private individual, and the 1 almud 
treats J epthah as mad to have thought that a human being 
could serve as a victim for a burnt ofiering ; but there are 
too many facts which prove the existence and execution of 
this barbarous law; see besides the paraphrase of Beu 
Ouziel : — " All anathema which shall be anathematised of th© 
human race cannot be redeemed neither by money, by vows, 
nor by sacrifices, neither by prayers for mercy before God, 
since he is condemned to death. ''t 

Nicholas! has the following comments, which appear to us 
most pertinent. He says : It will be vain to seek to deny 
that the legislator has appropriated a great number of the 
practices and civil and religious institutions of Egypt.'* 

The holy ark is incontestably an imitation of the small 
chapels in painted or gilded wood which are seen so fre- 
quently represented in the E^^yptian paintings. The breast- 
plate of the High Priest recalls the image which the priests 
of Egypt wore upon their breasts. Among the Hebrews, as 
among the Egyptians, women did not hold any office in the 
priesthood ; the priests were all clothed in a robe of linen of 
dazzling whiteness ; they only had the privilege of entering 
into the Temple properly so-called, access to which was for- 
bidden to the laity, who would have been smitten with 
sudden death did they transgress this prohibition. It was 
from the examination of the precious stones which adorned 
the statue of Ammon," says Mr. Maury, that the oracle 
was drawn.'* This manner of divination recalls the XJrim 



♦ De Wette's Introduction, § 152 b. 

t Cahen Levitique, 141. See alao commentary on Exodus, p. 200. 
t Btudea suria Bible, 95. 



ITS ATJTHENTrOITT AKD CREDIBILITY. 



335 



and Thummim among the Jews, which might indeed have 
been easily borrowed from the Egyptians. Among the 
Hebrews as among the Egyptians, the sacrifices and the 
oblations furnished subsistence to the priests in like manner ; 
the victims were to be without blemish, the priests were 
charged to assure themselves of this ; finally, the animals 
offered in sacrifice were treated in nearly the same manner; 
certain parts were to be consumed with fire, while other 
parts were given back to the person who offered the sacrifice, 
and served for the family repast. 

Analogous legal prescriptions, often identical, were imposed 
on the Hebrews as on the Egyptians. For both, a certain 
number of animals could not be used for food. It is true 
the prohibiting did not relate to the same animals in the 
two countries, and was not founded on the same reasons. Ifc 
was a sin for the Egyptians, says Plutarch, to drink or eat 
what was forbidden, and we know that it was the same 
among the Hebrews. The two peoples agree in regarding 
swine as unclean. With the one, as the other, the 
leprous, considered as impure beings, were subject to similar 
regulations. Lustrations were commanded in certa n iden- 
tical circumstances ; there were special commands for the 
sacerdotal order. Mourning had similar customs with the 
two nations ; the women smote their breasts while uttering 
loud cries, and covered their heads with dust or ashes, and 
the men allowed the hair of the head and the beard to grow, 
while everywhere else, Herodotus remarks, the custom was 
to cut the hair in sign of mourning. The distribution of 
days into weeks is found in the two nations, and both desig- 
nated them by analogous names. It is supposed from this 
that the period of weeks, invented by the Egyptians, was 
borrowed from them by the Hebrews. The antipathy to 
foreigners was as strong with the one nation as the other, 
an antipathy which did not fail to strike the first Greek 
writers who have spoken of the Israelites. In short, there 
is little even to the fringes which hung on the bottom of the 
garments of the children of Israel, and which have given rise 
to so many whimsical hypotheses, which is not found on the 
bottom of the linen tunics of the Egyptians. 

Finally, to terminate this enumeration of customs and 
ceremonies common to the Hebrews and Egyptians, an enu- 



336 LEViTicufl: 

I 

jmeration which it would be easy to prolong, I will say some 
words on the sacrifices of substitution, unknown to the He- 
brews before Moses, but forming an essential part of his 
legislation. These sacrifices were usual in Egypt. Herodotus 
has preserved to us the formula of imprecation employed by 
the Egyptians in this ceremony. ''If any misfortune," said 
the priest in laying his hand upon the head of the victim, 
menaces those who ofier this sacrifice, or Egypt entire, 
may it fall upon this head." The formula employed by the 
Egyptians in the sacrifices of substitution is not mentioned 
in any passage of the Old Testament; but one may suppose 
that it could not difier essentially from that of the Egyp- 
tians ; we know at least that whoever oSered a sacrifice of 
this kind, placed the hand upon the head of the victim, in 
order to indicate that it was to bear the punishment of the 
transgression which he had himself committed. From these 
analogies, a great number of learned men have concluded 
that the Mosaic legislation was a copy more or less faithful 
of the Egyptian institutions. I <lo not dissimulate myself, 
that this hypothesis seems to find its confirmation in Jewish 
tradition, which represents Moses as reared at the Court of 
Pharaoh, and initiated in all the mysteries and knowledge of 
the Egyptians. 



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ITS AUTHENTICITY AND CEEDIBILITT. 



The word BeMeBeBeU, in the desert/' is the 

usual title of this book in the Hebrew, although it some- 
times bears the title XJIDeBeR, its commencing 
words, ^'and he spake.'' The title in the Septuagint is 
^'Arithmoiy^ from which the Vulgate *^ Numeri " and the 
English " Numbers " are derived. The words ^* fourth book 
of Moses " have no foundation or authority in either Greek 
or Hebrew. The book is evidently made up of several 
documents,* sometimes carelessly put together, Vater, and 
those who have followed him, contend for several and 
distinct authors for the diflferent documents. The Masso- 
rites are supposed to have counted the verses and letters of 
the Book of Numbers, and to have stated that it contains, 
or contained in their day, 10 parscioth, or grand divisions, 
33 sedarim or minor divisions, 1288 verses, 16,707 words, 
and 62,529 letters, and that the middle of the book is in 
chap. xvii. 4.t 

Chap. i. 2.— Take ye the sum." Bellamy, " Take ye the 
chief." Cahen, Eaites le . denombrement " (make the 
numbering), and adds, ^Hhis is the second numbering." 
(See Exodus xxx. 11, and xxxviii. 25.) There is also a third 
(Numbers xxvi.) These three numberings, made at different 
dates, and giving the same result, are difficult to explain. ^ 
The words " tabernacle of the congregation " are in Sharpe's 
translation rendered " appointed tent " wherever they 
occur. 



* Simon: Histoire Crit. du Vieux Test., p. 24. t Ibid, p. 140« 
X See Bible : What it is, Exodus, p. 281. 



338 



OTMBEES: 



Verse 14. — Eliasapb the son of Deuel." Chap. ii. 14/ 
Eliasaph the son of Reuel." In chap. vi. 42 and 47, and 
in chap. 20, it is also Eliasaph the son of Deuel. Which 
is right ? The word written Eeuel is the same as the word 
written Eaguel, Numbers x. 29. In lieu of Deuel in chap, 
i. 14, the Septuagint has Ragouel, which it repeats without 
variation in each of the above texts. 

Verse 21. — Those that were." Bellamy declares that 
these words in this verse, and in verses 23, 25, 27, 29, 31, 
33, 35, 37, 39, 41, and 43, have no authority in the Hebrew 
text. He is right ; but the words do not change the sense, 
although it is not unfair to inquire why translators should 
supplement God's revelation. 

Verse 24. — Children of Gad." Cahen says that the 
Septuagint puts here Judah," and varies in stating the 
other names ; but the copy to which reference has been 
made in this commentary, has Gad," and agrees in the rest 
with the authorised version. 

Verse 46. — By this verse we learn that the number of 
Jews above twenty years of age, warriors (not including the 
Levites) capable of bearing arms, was 603,550 — Josephus* 
says 603,650 ; and taking old and young into consideration, 
as also men incapable of military service for various 
reasons, you can hardly compute these at more than four 
out of each ten, which would leave a total of about 1,500,000 
males ; the proportion of females would be 1,500,000 more. 
These, together with male and female slaves, and the tribe 
of Levi, must have made at least 3,000,000 people, an 
immense number to pass through a desert, where food and 
water were deficient. Cahen says that the numbers oriven 
are not historic, and that it is, therefore, idle to inquire 
why they are the same as those given seven months before. 

Verse 49. — "Only thou shalt not number the tribe of 
Levi, neither take the sum of them among the children of 
Israel." Chap. iii. 15 says, "Number the children of 
Levi." The Lord must have changed his original intention. 

Chap. iii. 7. — While this verse speaks of Moses and 
Aaron, the chapter only mentions the descendants of Aaron 
and of Levi, 



* Antiquities, book 3, c. 12, sec. 4. 



ITS ATJTHEXTICITY AND CEEDIBILITT. 



339 



Verse 16. — Moses numbered." The Septuagint says, 
** Moses and Aaron numbered." 

Verse 39.-22,000 is incorrect; it should be 22,300*— 
viz., Gershonites, 7,500; Kohathites, 8,600; Meranites, 
6,200. This may seem a trifling error, but in a revelation 
from God we are not prepared to expect errors at all ; and 
in this case it is a grave error, and not a mere slip of the 
copyist or transcriber, for in verse 46, corroborated by verse 
50, we are told that the first-born were 273 more in 
number than the male Levites, when, in fact, they were 27 
less. It is very extraordinary that the Levites should be 
comparatively so few in number, especially when we con- 
sider them as the most favoured by God. The whole of 
the Levites, male and female, could not be much over 
50,000, while the other tribes averaged, on the most limited 
calculation, at least four times that number. Cab en, who 
judges the numbers of the Levites to be unreliable, says that 
the proportion of first-born is evidently too weak. 

*'A11 the first-born males, from a month old and upwards, 
of those that were numbered were twenty and two thou- 
sand two hundred and threescore and thirteen." (Numbers 
iii. 43.) Let us see what this statement implies when 
treated as a matter of fact. Tor this purpose, I quote the 
words of Kurtz, iii., p. 209 If there were 600,000 
males of twenty years and upwards, the whole number of 
males may be reckoned at 900,000 (he elsewhere reckons 
1,000,000), in which case, there would be only one first- 
born to forty-two (forty-four) males. In other words, the 
number of boys in every family must have been, on the 
average, forty-two." This will be seen at once if we con- 
sider that the rest of the 900,000 males were not first-borns 
— and, therefore, each of these must have had one or other 
of the 22,273 as the first-born of his own family — except, 
of course, any cases where the first-born of any family was 
a daughter, or was dead, of which we shall speak presently. 
And these were not the first-born on the father's side, as 
Michaelis supposes, so that a man might have many wives 
and many children, but only one first-born, as was the case 
with Jacob himself. They are expressly stated to have been 

* Simon : Hist. Crit. du Vieux Test , p. 40. 



340 



NTJMBESS : 



the first-born on the mother^ s side — all the first-born that 
openeth the matrix." (Numbers iii. 12.) So that, according 
to the story in the Pentateuch, every mother of Israel must 
have had, on the average, Jorty-two sons.* 

Chap. iv. 3. — From thirty." The Septuagint says, 

from twenty-five," and the same in verses 23, 30, 35, and 
47. In Chap. viii. 24. our own text makes the age of Levi- 
tical service from 25 to 30. 

Verse 25. — " Badgers' skins." Bellamy urges that badgers 
as unclean animals were not allowed in the tabernacle. The 
Septuagint gives the word translated badger" as a colour 
azure. The Vulgate and J) oua^j, violet ; but Gesenius and 
Bresslau are against this. Cahen says, couverture de ta'hasch. 
Newman and Parkhurst seem doubtful. 

Chap. V. 8, 9, 10. — But if the man liave no kinsman to 
recompense the trespass unto, let the trespass be re- 
compensed unto the Lord, even to the priest ; beside 
the ram of the atonement, whereby an atonement shall 
be made for him. And every offering of all the holy 
things of the children of Israel, which they bring unto 
the priest, shall be his. And every man's hallowed things 
shall be his : whatsoever any man giveth the priest it shall 
be his." The rights of the priesthood are well looked after. 
God has in the Pentateuch well provided for the Levites 
whatever else may have been neglected. Here is a complete 
identification of the rights of the Lord with those of the priest, 
Let the trespass be recompensed unto the Lord, even unto 
the priest." Whether or not this Book was at any time a 
revelation from God, it is quite clear that it has always been 
the interest of the priesthood to support it. 

Verses 17 to 27. — We read of various ordeals amongst 
savage peoples, and it is customary to deplore the ignorance 
and barbarity of the nations amongst whom these customs 
are allowed to prevail. If we abide by this style of criticism, 
what must we say of the legislator who established or 
adopted the ordeal of the waters of jealousy ? — And the 
priest shall take holy water in an earthern vessel ; and of 
the dust that is in the floor of the tabernacle the priest shall 
take, and put it into the water." Holy water." What 



* Colenso, Part L, p. 84, 



I 



ITS ATTTHENTICITT AND CREDIBILITY. 341 

was the nature of this water ? Josephus says the priest took 
the dust " if any happened to be there." Cahen says that 
according to the Talmud, something was put into the water 
to render it bitter. Josephus adds, if the woman was un- 
justly accused she became with child, and was delivered in 
the tenth month Verse 28 gives some sort of colour to the 
same notion. Cahen observes that though full provision is 
made lor punishment of the guilty woman, not the least 
word is said of any punishment for the calumniating husband 
in case of the woman's innocence ; on the contrary, it 
appears by verse 31, that the man was to be held guiltless. 

Among the ancient nations means were sought for com- 
pelling — so to speak — God to declare clearly his will, to dis- 
tinguish the just from the unjust, the innocent from the 
culpable ; hence the judgments termed judgments of Q-od, 
the ordeals of the Middle Ages, of which duelling remains 
a sad relic. Ideas more just as to the action of Providence 
have suppressed among civilised nations those blasphemous 
modes of interrogating the divine will ; but they still exist in 
the Indies and among the tribes of Africa. Yater makes the 
following reflections on this subject : — Grotius has gathered 
together all the passages of the ancient Greek and Latin 
authors, wherein mention is made of certain waters to which 
was attributed the virtue of punishing perjury ; but it is 
still more remarkable that a similar custom exists, and for a 
similar case, in the neighbourhood of Sierra Leone, among 
the Mandingus and the Berlamets. It is regarded as an 
act of religion, and as such is executed by a priest. They 
steep in water the bark of a tree named Macon (?) ; the 
effect is less dangerous for the rich than for the poor ; 
death often follows before the end of the year. The 
law treated of in the text appears to be rather a 
means of terror, and cannot be considered as coming 
from God, nor even from a man judicious and humane, for 
all the infamy falls upon the woman. We must consider it 
at the best as a political law, invented to put bounds to the 
ill-founded suspicions of orientals, ever so jealous of the 
honour of their wives. CGeddes). See Vater, Nomb.^^. 
28-9."^ 



* Cahen: ]N"ombreS; p. 29. 



342 



KTJMBEES • 



Bellamy says — This statement of the trial for jealousy is 
— as it stands in the common versions — irreconcilable with 
the divine proceeding in every part of Scripture; it is un- 
dignified as it has respect to God who is the speaker ; and 
we do not find that water being set apart for any particular 
purpose, when consecrated, was made more holy, or pos- 
, sessed any virtues more than the common river water of 
Jordan. It was not possible for a distinction to be made 
between the innocent and the guilty, by simple water and 
dust, which the woman was made to swallow, unless a per- 
petual miracle had been performed ; which then might have 
been exhibited at the whim of any man, even of the worst of 
men, who might have chosen to suppose that his wife was 
incontinent. And thus the divine communication might 
have been made subservient to the licentious. It is un- 
dignified as it has respect to God, w^ho is made to say, Such 
shall be the effect of this water ; because this discriminating 
power rested with God only, which raiorht have been deter- 
mined by the suspected party being brought before God, and 
who could have pronounced the guilt or the innocence of the 
woman, without having recourse to a proceeding of this 
nature ; as he did in other cases. It was a proceeding which 
would have been so easily and so deceptionally practised by 
the idolators ; who would not have been at a loss how to 
have caused gripings and swellings among their followers, 
when it had suited their interests or convenience."* 

Chap. vi. — Lessius argues that these Nazarites were a kind 
of monks existing amongst the Egyptians long prior to the 
Mosaic era. The burning of the hair, referred to in v^rse 
18, appears to be the adoption ofa custom prevalent amontrst 
many Pagan nations who left the human hair to grow to a 
considerable length, and then offered it to some deity by 
way of sacrifice. 

Chap. vii. 1. — Cahen observes that this chapter ought 
more properly to follow after Exodus, chap, xl., v. 16, as the 
completion of the tabernacle belongs to that date, the second 
month of the first year, and does not follow the date with 
which Numbers commences — viz., the first day of the 
second month of the second year of the Exodus. 



♦ Bellamy : New Translation, p. 370. 



ITS AUTHENTICITY AND CEEDIBILITT. 



343 



Verse 2. — Heads of the house." The Septuagint has 
twelve chiefs of the house." 

Verse 14. — One spoon." In the Douay it is a little 
mortar." Cahen ^* a cup." The Breecl'es Bible. ati in- 
cense cup and so in vv. 20, 26 32 38. 44 5u. 56, 62, 68, 
74, 80, 86, except Cahen, who has arVerwards sp.j.jn.'" 

In verse 72, the Hebrew word day,' lUM. i- twice 

repeated, and the same surplusage exisi s in verse 78 

Verse 89. — And when Moses was gone into the taber- 
nacle of the congregation to spe^ k with him, then he heard 
the voice of one speaking unto him from ufF the mercy-seat 
that was upon the ark of testimony, from bet^veen the two 
cherubims; and he spake unto him." This voire is uttered 
in the hearing of no one but Moses. The Douay reads, 

And when Moses entered into the tabernacle of ihe 
covenant to consult the oracle, he heard the voice of one 
speaking to him from the propitiary that was ov^r the ark 
between the two cherubims, and trom this place he spake to 
him." Is not this similar to the ora-'le-consultins of other 
nations? It is admitted now by all ntellgent men, that 
the oracles of Delphos, of Amnion, and of Dodona. \^ere 
only instances of jugglery and cunning, practised by the 
priests on the people. In what respects are the oracies of 
the Jews superior? In one of the temples uncovered at 
Pompei there is a god with a partially hoJlow body, ni which 
there is enough room for the priest to have concealed him- 
self when delivering the oracle. The general c*.haracter- 
istics of oracles," says a writer in Brande, v^ere am- 
biguity, obscurity, and convertibility ; so that one ansM er 
would agree with several various, and sometimes d rectly 
opposite, events. Thus when Crcesus was on the point of 
invading the Medes he consulted the oracle of Delphi as to 
the success of the enterprise, and received for ans^^er, That 
by passing the EiverHalys, he would ruin a mighty empire," 
But whether it was his own empire, or that of his enemies, 
that was destined to be ruined was not intimated, and in 
either case the oracle could not fail to be right. The 
answer of the oracle to Pyrrhus is another well-known 
instance of this sort of ambiguity. ' Aio^ ie ^acidaj 
Romavvs, vincere posse ' — as it might either be interpreted 
in favour of or against Pyrrhus. This ambiguity and 



344 



NUMBERS : 



equivocation were not, hovvever, the worst feature that 
characterised the oracles of antiquity. Thej were at once 
ambiguous and venal. A rich or a powerful individual seldom 
found much difficulty in obtaining a response favourable to 
his projects, how unjust or objectionable soever. But such 
and so povverful is the influence of superstition, that this 
system of fraud and imposture maintained a lengthened 
ascendancy, and interested responses of the oracles fre- 
quently sufficed to excite bloody wars, and to spread desola- 
tion through extensive States." It is worthy of notice that 
while throughout this chapter we find bullocks, sheep, and 
goats, plenty for sacrifice, yet three chapters on we find the 
Israelites complaining of utter absence of flesh food. 

Chap. viii. 4. — According unto the pattern which the 
Lord had showed Moses." We have already referred to this 
in Exodus, p. 273. Can any sane person imagine that the 
infinite Creator presented on Sinai to the gaze of Moses 
heaven-made samples of golden candlesticks ? 

Yerse 8. — With his meat offering, even fine flour." The 
Douay, And for the offering thereof fine flour." The meat 
of our version does not exist in the Hebrew. 

Verse 11. — Shall offer the Levites before the Lord for 
an off'ering." The margin puts wave " in lieu of offer, and 

wave offering" in lieu of offering. Cahen, Tournoiera les 
Levites un tournoiement devant F Eternal.'' The verb 

tournoyer " is " to whirl,'' to turn round, which would 
make Cahen's translation, " Shall turn round the Levites a 
turn roundabout before the Lord." The Breeches Bible 
says, ^' Shall off'er the Levites before the Lord as a shake 
offering." In v. 13, where nearly the same words occur, 
Cahen uses the same terms as in v. IL So also the Breeches 
Bible ; but the Douay has, " Shall consecrate them being 
offered to the Lord." 

Chap. ix. 1. — Having commenced the book, chap, i., v. 
1, with the second month of the second year, we now go 
back to the first month, showing that the order of date is 
little cared for. To account for similar irregularities, 
Richard Simon * suggests that the Pentateuch was written 
on leaves rolled together, and that the order of some of these 
leaves has been changed. 

* Vieux Testament, Histoire Critique du, p. 35 



ITS AUTHENTICITY AND CEEDIBILITT. 



345 



Verge 6. — *^ Defiled by the dead body of a man." The 
Douay has, Unclean by occasion of the soul of a man." 
' Verse 36. — The words by day," are not in the Hebrew, 
but they are in the Septuagint and Vulgate. 

Verse 22.—^' Or a year." Cahen says that these worda 
are wanting in six Hebrew MSS., as they are also wanting 
in the Septuagint. The Douay has a longer time." 

Verse 23. — *^At the commandment of the Lord they 
rested in the tents, and at the commandment of the Lord 
they journeyed; they kept the charge of the Lord, at the 
commandment of the Lord by the hand of Moses." And yet 
despite all this obedience to the commandments of the Lord 
so often given personally to the Jews, the whole history of 
their wanderings in the desert is made up of disobediences 
and offences. 

Chap. X. 6. — In the Septuagint this verse is much 
longer, containing the directions for the third and fourth 
soundings for the western and northern divisions. 

Verse 9, — And it ye go to war in your land against the 
enemy that oppresseth you, then ye shall blow an alarm with 
the trumpets ; and ye shall be remembered before the Lord 
your God, and ye shall be saved from your enemies." This 
conveys the notion that the tarumpet sounding might recall 
the Israelites to God's memoiry. 

Verse 12. — And the cloud rested in the wilder- 
ness of Paran." The general notion, I say, is, that this 
cloud was an atmospheric cloud ; that it went before them 
to direct them in the way, and that when they saw it 
stationary they rested ; that during the long period of forty 
years they were in a solitary wilderness, where there were 
ro inhabitants but themselves. This is liable to objections. 
It has been said by objectors, " If a cloud had gone before 
them, and it had been a common atmospheric cloud, as has 
been, and is understood by the generality of people at this 
day, it must, when it rested, have been in the sight of the 
Hebrews always stationary on the top of the tabernacle, and 
consequently must never have removed till the time of their 
journeying. Why was this cloud called the cloud oftheLord^ 
and not a cloud of the sky? say objectors, as in other parts of 
Scripture, when a cloud of the sky is meant. Where was 
the necessity to watch day and night for the resting of the 



846 



KUMBEES : 



cloud, in order to know where they were to remain, when this 
information could with far greater propriety have been given 
before they departed ? Concerning this cloud, see Exodus, 
chap. xl. Such are the objections which have been, and 
continue to be made by intelligent men, from the groundless 
notion that this cloud was a cloud of the sky, which went 
before them in all their journeys. That the place to which 
they were to go was made known to them before they de- 
parted cannot be doubted; and, therefore, there was no 
necessity for a cloud to go before them ; a perpetual miracle 
to be done in this way."* 

Verse 21. — *^And the Kohathites set forward, bearing the 
sanctuary; and the other did set up the tabernacle against 
they came." There is no authority for the words the 
other" in the Hebrew. It is difficult to comprehend what 
this verse means Some regard the second half of the verse 
as an interpolation. 

Verse 33. — Cab en asks how the ark could go in front 
and before the Israelites, when its place was fixed between 
the first and second standards ? 

Verse 34. — <^ Of the Lord." These words are not in the 
Septuagint, and Cahen says they are wanting in at least 
one MS. Jar hi says that vv. 35 and 36 are not in their 
proper place here.f 

Chap. xi. 1. — *^ And when the people complained, it dis- 
pleased the Lord; and the Lord heard it; and his anger 
was kindled; and the fire of the Lord burnt among them, and 
consumed them that were in the uttermost parts of the 
camp." The Lord heard it." The Hebrew is to the 
ears of the Lord.'' The Septuagint to the eyes of the 
Lord ;" and instead of the uttermost parts," the Septua- 
gint has a part." The text does not say why the people 
complained. 

Verse 4.— See commentary on Exodus, p. 210. Some of 
the early Jewish writers ask how it was that the Israelites 
could already be in want of flesh, while they had on leaving 
Egypt flocks and herds, even very much cattle ?" 

Verse 8. — ''And baked it in pans, and made cakes of it ; 
and the taste of it was as the taste of fresh oil.'' The Douay 



* Bellamy, New Translation, p. 379. 
t Nombres, p. 54. 



ITS AUTHENTICITY AKD CREDIBILITY. 



347 



says, *^ and boiled it in a pot, and make cakes thereof of the 
taste of bread tempered with oil.'' According to Exodus 
xvi. 32, the taste was like that of honey. Cahen says that 
the oleaginous substance known as manna does not seem 
easy to grind in mills or in a mortar. Le Clerc and others 
have thought that the verses 7, 8, and 9 which here break 
awkwardly into the narrative are an interpolation. 

Verses 11 to 15. — Moses talks to God in a very strange 
fashion; he is querulous and reproachful. The** nursing 
father," of verse 12 is incorrect. The Douay, Bellamy, and 
Cahen render it nurse." God's replies to Moses are on 
a par with the style of the Jewish leader's address. God 
says, I will come down and talk with thee ** Is the 
Lord's hand waxed short ?" Bellamy, in a note to verse 
12, remarks that it does not appear that the translators or 
compilers of the Vulgate understood the grammar of the 
language ; and the revisers of the translation in the time 
of James appear either not to have understood it, or to have 
given no attention to the Hebrew. 

Verse 29. — In this verse the word Hl*^ EUaCh, is twice 
translated spirit." In verse 31 the same word is trans- 
lated *' wind" (see commentary on Genesis, p. 11). 

Verse 33. — Ere it was chewed." The Douay, and 
that kind ot meat had not yet failed." If our version be 
true that the people were smitten with the plague beforo 
they had time to digest their gathering, then verse 20 is 
contradicted, where the Lord says that the people shall eat 
for one month. 

Chap. xii. 1. — ^^The Ethiopian." In a foot-note to the 
Douay Bible, and by many commentators, it has beea 
sought to identify this Ethiopian with Zipporah, the 
daughter of the priest of Midian. Cahen, however, points 
out that the Cushites (the word TV^IS:^ KeShlTh being the 
Hebrew which is rendered Ethiopian) were a distinct race 
from the Midianites. Dr. Giles says* that, admitting the 
identity of the Cushite woman with Jethro's daughter, the 
manner in which her name is mentioned is perfectly incom- 
patible with her having been already described, and that so 
fully in Exodus ii., as the daughter to the priest of Midian, 
and married to Moses, possibly several years before the 



* Hebrew Eecords, p. 222. 



348 



KUMBERS : 



Strife which Miriam and Aaron now stirred up on her ac- 
count. This leads to the following conclusion, either that 
the two accounts of the wife of Moses were written by two 
distinct authors, or that the Ethiopian woman whom Moses 
married was not the same as the daughter of Jethro, priest 
of Midian. In the former case the whole Pentateuch, as it 
now is, cannot be considered as the work of Moses ; in the 
latter case, the mixture of the Israelites with other tribes 
would appear to have begun very early after the Exodus, 
and to have been carried to a very great extreme. If the 
Cushite or Ethiopian woman be the same Zipporah of 
Exodus, you have the further difficulty, says Cahen,* that 
Moses had been married to Zipporah 42 years at the time of 
this incident. 

Verse 3. — Now the man Moses was very meek, above 
all the men which were upon the face of the earth.'' This 
is one of the many verses which have puzzled common- 
tators,t and afforded grounds for the declaration that Moses 
cannot have thus written of himself. Many somewhat or- 
thodox critics incline to the doctrine that this verse is an 
interpolation. 

Father Simon reminds^: us that we ought not to be too 
curious as to the particular authors of each book, it being 
sufficient, according to Pope Gregory, of saintly memory, 
to admit that all these books have been written under inspi- 
ration. The Douay says that " Moses being the meekest 
of men, would not contend for himself ; therefore, God 
inspired him to write here his own defence ; and the Holy 
Spirit, whose dictates he wrote, obliged him to declare the 
truth, though it was so much to his own praise." 

Verse 8. — ''With him will I speak mouth to mouth, even 
apparently, and not in dark speeches ; and the similitude of 
the Lord shall he behold ; wherefore then were ye not afraid 
tc speak against my servant Moses In the Douay the 
whole of the portion of this verse here given in the future 
tense is rendered in the present tense. Cahen agrees with 
the Douay. He remarks that the anthropomorpbic phrase- 
ology of this verse has given great trouble to the common- 



* Cahen, p. 62. 

"t Spinoza : Tractaciis Theologico-Politicus, cap. 8, sec. 15. 
X Histoire Critique Vieux Test , p. 2. 



ITS ArTHE>'TICITT AND CEEDrBIXITT. 



349 



tators. The an2:er of God directed against ]\Iiriam and not 
against Aaron, though both appear to have offended, and the 
curious conversation between the Jewish Deity and Moses 
and Aaron, are deserving of close attention. The true 
believer may discover the hidden greatness ; to an infidel the 
notion of the Lord coming down," the picture of God as 
he stood in the door of the tabernacle/' Moses seeing the 
form or similitude of the Lord,'' are so many evidences 
of the puerility of Judaistic theology. 

Chap. xiii. 8. — " The son of Nun.'* The Septuagint has 

the son of Naue.'' 

Verse 16. — '*And Moses called Oshea the son of Xun 
Jehoshua." Why our version alters the end of the name 
as we]] as the beginning is hard to say. In the Hebrew the 
only change is the letter ^ Yod, at the commencement. In 
Acts vii. 45, Joshua is called Jesus, and Dr. Wall argues 
that the Hebrew text has been corrupted in this word, 
"which he says should be Teshua, the Hebrew equivalent for 
Jesus.* 

Verse 22. — Hebron '' (vide commentarv on Genesis, p. 
90). 

Verses 23 and 24. — Brook of Eshcol." It is suggested 
that this naming cannot fairly be supposed to have taken 
place until after the Israelites entered the land, and that 
consequently the book itself could not have been written by 
Moses. t 

Chap. xiv. — It is not unworthy of notice that although the 
descendants of Abraham are supposed to have been 
surely maltreated by the Egyptians, even to the extent 
of slaughtering the male born Jews, yet the Israelites are 
ever anxious to return to the land of Egypt. God's dis- 
pleasure at the murmuring of the Jews is in this instance 
scarcely reasonable. Under divine commands Moses had 
selected twelve prominent men to make a survey of the 
Promised Land and to report to the people. Ten of these 
make an evil report of the land, and draw a highly 
coloured picture of the dangers attending any attempt to 
conquer it. Two, Caleb and Joshua, gave a contrary version. 



* Grounds for Eevision of Hebrew Text, p» 136. 
t Giles's Hebrew Eecords, p. 133. 



-J 



350 



NUMBEES : 



but the Hebrews put their faith in the majority, and at least 
talked of stoning the two dissentient reporters. God was 
displeased that the Israelites believed the majority, and he, 
ia somevvliat the same language as may be found in Exodus 
xzxii., said that he would smite the Israelites with pesti- 
iance, and make Moses a greater and mightier nation. As 
on the former occasion, Moses sought to influence Grod by 
telling him that if he kills all this people as one man, the 
nations will say that he did it because he was not able to 
bring the people to the Promised Land. On this God, the 
immutabU, ultimately changed his determination, and yet 
the orthodox of to-day refer to the Bible for elevated con- 
ceptions of Deity, 

Verse 2. — The word " God,'' twice repeated in this verse, 
has no equivalent in the Hebrew, nor in the Septuagint or 
the Latin Vulgate. 

Verse 10. — After the words ^' the glory of God appeared," 
the Septuagint adds, in a cloud." Our version says the 
glory appeared in the tabernacle; the Douay says that 
it appeared over " the tabernacle. 

Verses 13 and 14.— The Douay renders these verses 
as though both the Egyptians and the inhabitants of this 
land would talk depreciatingly of the Lord, while our version 
makes it that the Egyptian would speak of the Lord's doings 
to the inhabitants of this land. Cahen says that the con- 
etruction of these two verses is very complicated. 

Verse 18 is nearly a repetition of Exodus xxxiv. 7. The 
Jews, Cahen says, have a tradition that when Moses ascended 
to the Lord he found him writing " The Lord is long suffer- 
ing.'' "For the just only?" asked Moses. "For the 
sinners also," was the Lord's reply, and that it was for this 
reason that Moses on each of these occasions repeated this 
formula. 

Verse 22. — Ten times." These ten times are supposed 
to be — 1st, Exodus, xiv., 12 ; 2nd, xv., 23 and 24; 3rd, xvi., 
3, 4th, xvi., 20; 5th, xvi., 27; 6th, xvii., 2 and 3; 7th, 
xxxii. ; 8th, Numbers, xi., 1 ; 9th, xi., 4; 10th, the mur- 
muring here recorded. 

Verse 23. — Cahen says, '*If this were the judgment of an 
ordinary tribunal, the punishment would appear to be out 
of proportion to the fault. God had himself commanded 



ITS AUTHENTICITY AND CREDIBILITY. 



851 



the exploration of the country, and twelve notable men 
worthy of confidence had been chosen; ten making an un- 
favourable report, it was natural the people should believe 
them, yet for this God punishes the Israelites more severely 
than when they joined in the worship of the golden calf. 

Verse 25. — (" Now the Amalekites and the Canaanites 
dwelt in the valley.") The words seem abruptly interpolated. 
There is a sudden break off in the narrative, and the words 
as they stand in our version, have no connection with the 
text preceding or following them. 

Verse 34. — And ye shal) know my breach of promise." 
Bellamy says, This passage has caused much controversy. 
. . . It has been asserted by many eminent and learned 
men, that God, because of his absolute sovereignty not being 

accountable, had a right to break his promise 

Thus it represents the source of all good as capable of doing 
those tilings which would be disgraceful to man; he who is 
unchangeable as subject to change; subject to all the fallen 
passions of man ; and what is worse (objectors say) it re- 
presents the being of all perfection as capable of violating 
his sacred promise." Bellamy avoids this hostile criticism 
by translating the words know my breach of promise" as 
experience my threatenings." Cahen says that the word 
on which so much depends, and which he translates " ab- 
sence," making it know my absence," is only found in 
one other place in the Bible, Job xxxiii. 10.* The Douay 
renders it know my revenge.'' Sharpe writes it *^ know 
my estrangement." 

Verse 35.—'* I will surely do it unto all," Bellamy 
renders thus, Surely I will not do this to any.'' He says 
our translators have omitted the negative, LA. 

Verses 43 to 45.— In Exodus xvii. 14 and 16, God swore 
to utterly put out the remembrance of Amalek from under 
heaven, and to have war with them from generation to gene- 
ration. From this chapter it is evident that God had not 
kept the first portion of his oath, and that he had suspended 
the second. Here he aids and assists the Amalekites to 
destroy the Israelites. 



* In our version it is there translated " occasions." See also 
Etheridge on Targums, p. 282» 



352 



NUMBERS : 



Verse 45. — Hormah."* This verse could not have been 
so written in the life time of Moses, as the city of Zephath 
was not called Hormah until after the death of Joshue^ 
{vide Judges i. 17) : in chap, xxi., 1 to 3, we find an account 
of the destruction of certain cities, and the naming the 
place Hormah, which is apparently inconsistent with the ac- 
count in Judges. After the word Hormah, which the Sep- 
tuagint writes Erman, that version adds, *^ and they returned 
to the camp.'' This " (says Dr. Shuckford, as quoted in 
the Family Bible) *^was elfected in the days of Joshua 
(Joshua xii. 14) or a little after his death " (Judges i. 17) 
Yet Dr. Shuckford did not perceive that the relation of an 
event, which happened in or after the days of Joshua, could 
not have come from the pen of Moses, 

Chap. XV. — This chapter seems out of place, having no 
connection with the one which precedes or the one which 
follows. 

Chap. XV, 7, and chap, xxviii. 7. — We draw the attention of 
Dr. Lees and the United Kingdom Alliance to the special 
utility of the Bible as a book for total abstainers from wine and 
strong drink. 

Verses 32 to 35. — Tou have here an application of the 
law of Exodus xxxi. 14 and 15. To-day these Bible enact- 
ments are obsolete, and if twenty Jews were now indicted 
for killing a man whom they had found gathering sticks on 
Sunday, the judges, notwithstanding that Christianity is 
parcel of the law of England, would rule that the Penta- 
teuchal law was of no avail as a plea against the common 
law, and the Jews would be convicted, if not of murder, at 
any rate of manslaughter. 

Chap xvi. contains the history of a rebellion on the part 
of Korah, Dathan, Abiram, and On, against the authority of 
Moses, connected with which there are several curious 
features ; the rebels are swallowed up and consumed by a 
sort of earthquake, explosion, and fire, which of course is 
sent by the Lord ; but as Moses took a whole day to make 
the necessary preparations, it is quite possible to account for 
the destruction of Korah and his party in a less miraculous 
manner. It is apparent that Moses had a direct interest in 



* Giles's Hebrew Records, p. 135. 



ITS AUTHEimCITr AND CREDIBILITT. 353 



the destruction of these men, who wished to share the 
priestly power which Moses was limiting to the family of hii 
brother Aaron. 

By verses 29 and 30 it is clear that the manner of their 
destruction was pre-arranged by Moses; and it is also clear 
that the Israelites themselves took this view of the matter, 
for in verse 41 we find them charging Moses and Aaron with 
having killed the people of the Lord. There are one or two 
puzzling features in the story. It is difficult to understand 
how Korah's children escaped if verses 27, 32, and 33 be 
true; yet we are told in chap. sxvi. 11, **the children of 
Korah died not." It is clear from the murmurings of the 
people that they did not regard the death of Korah and his 
associates as an act of God's wrath. The only impression 
made seems to have been that it increased their discontent 
against Moses. In the Hebrew the last fifteen verses of this 
chapter become the first fifteen of chap, xvii. 

Chap. xvii. 1 to 8. — This miracle of Aaron's rod budding 
amongst the other rods was easy of accomplishment, when 
we remember how carefully the tabernacle was guarded by 
Moses and his selected priests, who had every facility for 
changing one rod for a branch from a fruit-bearing tree. 
The rod, according to this account, budded, blossomed, and 
bore almonds all within twenty-four hours. 

Verse 6 says there were ^* twelve rods, and the rod of 
Aaron was among their rods.'' The Douay says, ^Hhere 
were twelve rods beside the rod of Aaron." 

Verses 12 and 13. — These verses are a sufficient evidence 
of the care taken by Moses to prevent the people inspecting 
too closely his thaumaturgic tabernacle, Cahen adds as 
comment to this and the foregoing chapter, Behold an 
earthquake, a miraculous burning, a plague, a miraculous 
vegetation — four prodigious events thrown together to legi- 
timise the exclusive sacerdotal supremacy of one family." 
I Chap, xviii. 10. — " In the most holy place shalt thou eat." 
Most holy place should be " holy of holies." Sharpe and 
Bellamy so translate it. Cahen renders it saint des sai7its,'* 
and observes that the verse is embarrassing because there was 
a prohibition against any person entering except the high 
priest on the day of expiation. 

Verse 15. — See chap, iii., 12 and 14. There is some coa« 



854 



NUMBERS : 



fusion in these texts, as by the earlier text it was only the sur« 
plus number of first born Israelites beyond the number of the 
Levites, who were to be redeemed with money — here all are 
to pay the five shekels. 

Verse 18. — But see Deuteronomy xii., 17 and 18, and 
XV. 19 and 20. There is an inconsistency in these texts. 
O e gives the whole flesh to the Levites, the other does not. 

Verses 20 to 24. — It is much to be regretted that our 
priests never imagined that this part of the revelation had 
any personal relation to them ; great attention has been paid 
to the tithe part of the Book, but our reverend pastors have 
most wonderfully overlooked the part which says, Thou 
shalt have no inheritance in their land." This, they say, only 
applies to the Jews. On what principle, then, does the 
tithe injunction or any other part of the Book apply to the 
Gentiles ? The extraordinary quantity of food provided in 
this and other chapters for the family is out of all reason. 

Chap xix, contains a direction to the priest to burn a red 
heifer, the ashes of which heifer apparently become water, 
by a process not described, but consequent on the burning ; 
or rather, if the translators of our version had condescended 
to be explicit, I suppose they only meant, as stated in verse 
17, that the ashes are to be mixed with water. This water 
is a kind of holy water, with which every unclean person is 
to be sprinkled, under pain of death. Among a people so 
numerous as the Jews, some must have had great difficulty 
in getting access to this water, especially those residing at a 
great distance from the place where the ashes were kept. 
Cahen says that this commandment as to the red cow must 
be placed amongst the irrational enactments, and points out 
that it is almost an imitation of one of the Egyptian sacri- 
fices in the worship of Osiris and Isis. 

Verse 2. — The Douay and Bellamy make Eleazer himself 
kill the red heifer, while our version makes one slay her 
before Eleazer's face. In truth the whole of the Hebrew of 
this chapter is very obscure as to the persons who are to 
perform the particular acts. 

Verse 13.— ^^The dead body of any man that is dead." 
Those who defend the style of the orthodox version will 
perhaps say if it is possible to have the dead body of any man^ 
that is ^Uve. 



ITS AUTHENTICITr AND CREDIBILITT, 355 



Verse 20.— " The jBrst month." But of what year? 
Cahen says that the end of the narrative would make you 
think it the 40th year, and he adds that it is curious that 
you only find records in the Pentateuch of the events of the 
first and second and the 40th years, the history of the in- 
termediate 37 years being left entirely unknown. 

In the Douay translation of verse 6, following the Latin 
Vulgate, we are told that Moses and Aaron cried to the 
Lord and said, 0 Lord God, hear the cry of this people, 
and open to them thy treasure, a fountain of living water, 
that being satisfied, they may cease to murmur.'* These 
words are entirely omitted in our version, and it would seem 
that some other portion of the original account must be lost, 
as we find the Lord reproaching Moses and Aaron for their 
exhibition of unbelief, of which we have no account here. 
There is a strong similarity in the account here, and that in 
Exodus xi. In both cases the name Meribah follows the event. 

Verses 23 to 29. — Aaron's death is rather curiously re- 
lated ; it was not only a sudden death, but one pre-arranged, 
and the account almost conveys the idea that Moses and 
Eleazer killed Aaron in the mount. Cahen says the account 
is a most singular one. Goethe says that " Aaron disap- 
peared (verschwunden) shortly after he had proved refractory 
against Moses," and he afterwards quaintly adds — Moses 
himself vanished as Aaron had vanished; and we err very 
much if Joshua and Caleb had not found it expedient to 
put an end to the rule, already born for years, of a narrow- 
minded man, and to despatch him after the so many unfor- 
tunates he had despatched before.'* 

Chap, xxi., vv. 1 to 3. — This narration is perplexing; the 
Israelites certainly did not destroy all the Canaanites, and 
could scarcely have des^troyed the cities of the Canaanites, 
until they had entered the land of Canaan, into which it is 
alleged they did not go in the lifetime of Moses. 

The King of Arad is in Joshua, c. 12 v 14 one of the kings, 
destroyed after the death of Moses. Here the text calls 
him King Arad, and in Joshua King of Arad ; the Hebrew 
is the same in both cases ^-^y M^LeK OEeD. 

Bellamy argues that there must ' be an error in th% 
translation, for, he says, these cities were in being and were 
divided amongst the tribes on the division of the land. 



856 



NUMBERS : 



V. 2. — And Israel vowed a vow unto the Lord, and said, 
if thou wilt indeed deliver this people un-to my hand, then I 
will utterly destroy their cities." This vow is in the nature 
of a bargain ; God, according to v. 3, accepts the terms. 
Jacob made a similar sort of bargain, " if the Lord will do 
certain things, then the Lord shall be my God." 

Verse 6. — Cahen says it is singular enough that when the 
people complained of the fatigues of the journey and bad 
food that they should be bitten by serpents to reduce them 
to silence. 

V. 8. — In our version, verse 8, Moses is told to make a 

fiery serpent ;" in the Douay, he is told to make a brazen 
serpent." Li the Hebrew the word "XD^ ^«ChaSh rendered 
serpent in verses 6, 7 and 9, does not occur in v. 8 at all. 
The direction is, ^' make thee a ^-^^J She EaPh.'' Cahen 
says, ^*It is known that amongst the Greeks and Egyptians 
the serpent was a symbol of medicine. The serpent is the 
emblem of Esculapius. Perhaps the words scrap and serapis 
have some analogy. Parkhurst says ^ It may perhaps be 
worth remarking that Esculapius, the Eoman God of Health, 
was feigned to have been brought to Eome from Epidaurus, 
a city of Peloponesus, in the form of a large serpent, and 
that his image is usually represented holding in one hand a 
knotted stick with a serpent twisted round it." 

The names of the encampments given here do not agree 
with those given in chap. 33. There are places omitted here 
which are mentioned in the other chapter, and places named 
here of which there is no record in cap. 33. 

Verse 14.--^^ The Book of the wars of the Lord.'^ What 
book is this ? Who was the author of it ? What has become 
of it? Was it inspired? If not, why is it cited as an 
authority in this book for which inspiration is claimed ? In 
answer to all these questions, it is only possible to say that 
the book referred to is^ although the first and only book 
specially quoted in the Pentateuch, one of several books 
quoted from m our Bible, and now lost ; the authorship is un- 
known ; it must have been a well-known book at the time 
Numbers was written, and, consequently, more ancient than 
Numbers. 



• Lexicon 773. 



ITS AUTHENTICITY AND CEEDIEILITT. 357 



It is evident the writers of Paul's Epistles, the Epistle of 
Jude, and the Acts of the Apostles, must have had writings to 
refer not now extant, as there are references made in those 
portions of the New Testament to facts not recorded in tha 
Hebrew Scripture handed down to us. 

Dr. Giles has collected* a list of the various books referred 
to in different parts of our version, and not now existing, 
and has also noted several references in the Old and New 
Testament to facts of which no records now survive 

In St. Paul's Epistle to the Hebrews, ix., 19, we read 
thus : — 

" For when Moses had spoken every precept to all th6 
people, according to the law, he took the blood of calves and 
of goats, with water and scarlet wool, and hvssop, anc^ 
sprinkled both the book and all the people." 

The writer of this epi.^-tle must also have had more sources 
of information than we now possess, fcr the account which 
he gives in the verse before us does not exactly tally with 
any of the various verses m the Levitical Law, where the 
subject is related. Nothing is said of the book being 
sprinkled with the blood, even if the other parts of the 
description are allowed to bear a sufficient resemblance^ 

Another remarkable instance bearing upon my present 
argument, is the account which St. Jude gives of a contest 
between Michael and the devil . — 

**Yet Michael, the archangel, when contending with the 
devil he disputed about the body of ]\Ioses, durst not bring 
against him a railing accusation, but said, * Lord rebuke 
thee V 

It is not known to what St Jude alludes in this verse ; 
nothing is said in the Old Testament of any contest between 
the devil and the archangel Michael. 

In St. Paul's Second Epistle to Timothy, chap, iii , v. 8, 
are found the names of tw^o of the magicians who competed 
with Closes m magical arts in the presence of Pharaoh, King 
of Egypt 

Now, as Jannes and Jambres withstood Moses, so do 
these also resist the truth ; men of corrupt mmds, reprobate 
conoerning the faith." 

* Hebrew Eecords, pp 39 to 42, and pp. 199 to 204 



358 



NUMBERS : 



It is pre-umed that the names, Jannes*' and Jam* 
bras, ' not found m the Books of Moses, became known t9 
St. Paul through the medium of other writnigs, in which 
many particulars of Jewish history were recorded, but now 
no longer in existence. 

Several circumstances of the life and acts of Moses are 
known to us, only because they are noticed in the New 
Testament, no mention being made of them in the old Jewish 
Scriptures. For instance, in Acts vii., Vc 22, etc., we are 
told that— 

Moses was learned in all the wisdom of the Egyptians, 
and was mighty in words and deeds. And when he was 
full forty years old, it came into his heart to visit his 
brethren of Israel," etc. 

But in the Book of Exodus the account of these things 
is much shorter, and nothing is said of the age of Moses at 
the time referred to. 

Neither is there any authority in the Pentateuch for the 
remark which occurs in Hebrews xi , 24: — 

" By faith Moses, when he came to years, refused to 
be called the son of Pharaoh's daughter." 

These circumstances make it probable that there were 
other original records in the time of St. Paul, which have 
since perished. 

This conclusion is supported by the admitted fact that 
many books which have perished are quoted in the Old Tes- 
tament itself. Such are the books of Jasher, Enoch, the 
Wars of the Lord, and many others. 

A perplexing train of argument opens to us from a con- 
sideration of these facts. If the books which have perished 
were of value, why have the} perished ? If they were of 
no value, why have valuable writers, like St. Paul, quoted 
them ? It is supposed that they were of inferior authority, 
but this point has not been proved. If the existing books 
are genuine relics of a high antiquity, yet some of the lost 
books w^ere more ancient still. The same Providence which 
has preserved the one has suffered the others to sink, even 
though those which have floated down the stream of time 
are imperfect on many points, which the others would have 
iupplied, 

Cahen following Mendelssohn^ regards the quotation from 



ITS AUTHENTICITY AND CREDIBILITY. 359 



the lost book of the wars of the Lord, as commencing verse 
14 and ending verse 21. 

Verse 27. — Wherefore they that speak in proverbs say— «- 
The Douay has Therefore it is said in the proverbs." 
Cahen " &est pour quoidisent les poetesJ^ Wheretore the 
poets say.^^ He remarks, The author wished to prove that 
Heshbon was a city of Sihon, and cites the stanza of a 
poem." Is this another unknown writing more ancient than 
the Pentateuch. Bellamy to avoid the difficulty translates 
the verse in the future *^ Therefore they shall say in pro- 
verbs." A convenient language the Hebrew for theological 
disputation. 

In chap. xxiv. 3 and 15, our version reads, "The man whose 
eyes are open the Douay has it in each verse follo\;^ing the 
Vulgate, " The man whose eye is stopped up the Breeches 
Bible renders it, " The man whose eyes were shut up." 
Cahen translates the concluding sentence of each " discours 
de I'homme a I'aeil percant,'' and observes that according 
to tradition Balaam was blind. The Septuagint gives it^ — 
" The man seeing truly," or " seeing truth Bellamy, 
" The man whose eye was shut." 

Verse 7. — Agag is a difficulty. The Bible Agag is many 
generations later than Balaam. Some seek to bring this 
writing to the period of Saul or David. 

Verse 16.—" Which saw the vision of the Almighty, 
falling into a trance, but having his eyes open." 

Verses 4 and 16. — The words " into a trance" have no 
authority in the Hebrew. Bellamy* objects very strongly 
to this translation, as in some measure justifying the ten- 
dency to believe in witchcraft and necromancy, but his own 
version is hardly an improvement. 

Verse 24. — " And ships shall come from the coast of 
Cbittim." Bellamy has, "Tor beasts from the power of 
Shittim the Douay, " They shall come in galleys trom 
Italy." 

Chap. XXV. 1. — If the " Shittim here mentioned is the 
same as in chap, xxxiii. 49, it is the last station of the Is- 
raelites in the desert. 

Verse 4. — According to our text all the Iriads of the 



* New Translation, p. 420. 



360 



NUMBERS : 



people were to be themselves hung. According to the 
Samaritan version and the Targums of Palestine, Onkelos, 
and Jerusalem, the heads of the people were to judge the 
Israelites and order the guilty to be hung. This " fierce 
anger of the Lord to be abated by a glut of vengeance is 
inconsistent with Deuteronomy iv. 31, The Lord thy God 
is a merciful God." 

Verse 6. — Brought unto his brethren a Midianitish 
woman." The Septuagint says he " conducted his brother 
to the Midianite." Josephus says that the Israelite married 
the Midianite. 

Verses 7 and 8. — **And when Phinehas, the son of 
Eleazar, the son of Aaron the priest, saw it, he rose up from 
among the congregation, and took a javelin in his hand. And 
he went after the man of Israel into the tent, and thrust 
both of them through, the man of Israel and the woman 
through her belly. So the plague was stayed from the 
children ot Israel." The Palestine Targum contains a 
record of twelve miracles wrought on this occasion inter 
alia. Phinehas carried the two bodies on the lance six miles 
throughout the whole camp without fatigue. It also states 
that the man who was killed by Phineas because he brought 
the Midianitish woman into the camp had reminded Moses 
that he himself had married the daughter of Jethro, a 
Midianite. 

Verse 9.—'^ 24,000." In 1 Corinthians, x. 8, the 
number is given as 23,000." Josephus says "14,000." 

Chap, xxxvi. 4. — " Take the sum of the people " are added 
in our version without authority in the Hebrew. Cahen 
says that verses 3 and 4 have evidently been altered or are 
very defective. Our translators have striven here to make 
the text readable. 

Verses 10 and 11. — The Douay says, And there was a 
great miracle wrought ; that when Core (Korah) perished, 
his sons did not perish." Our version* omits the miracle, 
but ^ys that those destroyed " became a sign," and that 
" the children of Korah died not:" yet in chap. xvi. 32 and 
33, we are told that " the earth opened her mouth, and 
swallowed them up, and their houses, and all the men that 



* Cahen here agrees with our version. 



ITS AUTHE>'TICITX ASD CEEDIBHITT. 



361 



appertained unto Korah, and all their goods, they and all 
that appertained unto them, went down alive into the pit, 
and the earth closed upon them, and they perished from 
among the congregation." 

Verse 12. — JS'emuel is called Jemuel " in Genesis, 
xlvi. 10, and in Exodus vi. 15, but is Nemuel in 1 
Chronicles iv. 24. The commencing N ^ here and in 
Chronicles is I in Genesis. Jachin is in 1 Chronicles 
iv. 24: called Jarib the IKIX, being changed to 1*^"^*^ 
IRIB, the second and fourth letter? being altered. 

Verse 13. — Zerah" is called Zohar " in Genesis, xlvi, 
10, but the spelling is verv different. Here the word is 
Z^EeCh, in Genesis TzeCh^E. The family of 

Ohad mentioned in Genesis is missing here, and also in 
1 Chronicles iv. 1. The very numerous differences between 
this chapter and Genesis xlvi., and between the two books 
and the first book of Chronicles, should be sufficient to 
demolish the doctrine of plenary inspiration without a single 
word to give additional force to the tacts. 

Verse lo. — Zephon p^!J Tsc^PhUX is in Genesis xlvi.l6., 
written Ziphion pN^l'TsePhlUN. 

Verse 16. — ^' Ozni " is called ^^Ezbon" in Genesis xliv. 16, 
Eri is in the Septuagint written Addi. 

Verse 1:0.— Shelah is in the Septuagint written Selom. 

Verse 21. — ^' Hamul." The Septuagint has Jamoun.** 
The Samaritan, according to Cahen, has a word sounding 
similarly to tlie Hebrew, but with different letters. 

Verse 23. — Pua " is called " Phuvah " in our version, 
Genesis, xlvi. 13, but in the Hebrew they are spelt alike 

ma p.u.E. 

Verse 24.—" Jashub nitT'' IShUB is caUed Job " 
lUB in Genesis, xlvi, 13. 

Verse 30.— Jeezer ^^y^^^ AIOZeE. In the Septuagint 
this is Ackiezer in this verse. In Joshua xvii. 2, our ver- 
sion gives us Abiezer, the letter 1 being introduced after 
the first letter. Judges vi. 11 follows Joshua. The error 
i here and in verse 24 apparently occurs by the omission in 
Numbers of the 2nd letter in each case. The Septuagint 
has probably had a version in this verse where the 3 had 
been changed to j or they have blundered and mistaken one 
for the other. 



862 



NUMBERS : 



Vjrse 32. — Shemida is in the Septuagint Sumaer. 

Verse 35. — " Becher of the family of the Bacharites is 
omitted in the Septuagint. In 1 Chronicles vii, 20, in lieu of 

Becher " you have Bered,'* and in lieu of Tahan " you 
have Tahath the Septuagint has this " Tanach,^ 

Verse 38. — There is a difference in the number and names 
of the sons of Benjamin when compared with Genesis xlvi. 
and 1 Chronicles viii. In Genesis 10 sons are named, her^ 
5 sons and 2 grandsons, sons of Bela. In Chronicles 3 
sons differently named and 9 grandsons, sons of Bela, 
Ahiram DI'Tl^* AChlReM is in 1 Genesis xlvi. 21 Ehi 
•jni^ AChI, and in 1 Chronicles viii. 1, Aharah rT^nt^ 
ACh^EeCh. In the Septuagint all the names differ : Bela is 
Bale, Ashbel is Asuber, and Ahiram is Jachiran. 

Verse 39.— Shupham in the Hebrew is DDIDtl) ShePUPeM 
in Genesis xlvi. 21, it is Muppim. In 1 Chronicles viii. 1-2 
Shupham does not occur at all amongst the five sons of 
Benjamin, but a similar name, Shephuphan, is put in verse 5 
as a son of Bela ; the only difference in the Hebrew being 
that the final tID is transformed into a final Instead of 
Shupham the Septuagint has Sophan, and omits of Hupham 
the family of the Huphamites " altogether. 
, Verse 40.— Ard " ARD, in the Septuagint Adar 
Addar This is only a transposition of the two last 

letters, but it is curious that the Septuagint of Numbers, 
and Hebraic of Chronicles should make the same blunder. 
Here Ard and Maaman are sons of Bela ; so in Chronicles, in 
Genesis they are sons of Ephraim. Which is the correct 
account ? 

Verse 42. — Shuam is in the Septuagint. Same in Genesis 
xlvi. 23, it is Hushim U^WTl CheShIM, in lieu of Dmtjy 
ShIJCheM Shuam. 

Verse 45. — The words " of the sons of Beriah," which 
mean nothing here, are wanting in the Septuagint, and 
Cahen says are also wanting in the Samaritan. 

Verses 54 to 56. — " To many thou shalt give the more 
inheritance, and to few thou shalt give the less inheritance : 
to every one shall his inheritance be given according to 
those that were numbered of him. Notwithstanding tha 
land shall be divided by lot: according to the names of 
the tribes of their fathers they shall inherit. According 



ITS AUTHENTICITY AND CREDIBILITr. 363 



anger was kindled because he went." Cahen remarks that 
God, after having given permission to Balaam to go, ia 
irritated because he has availed himself of the permission. 
The Jewish commentators have taken great trouble to explain 
away the text. Bellamy says : In the 20th verse it is 
said, that God told Balaam he should go, but here we find 
it said — and God's anger were kindled because he went* 
Much has been written respecting this matter, by many 
commentators, and they have concluded their researches by 
saying that ' Moses, as became an historian, hath only stated 
the case, and left the reader to infer Balaam's crime. If 
the men come and call thee, go. But he rose up early, got 
himself ready, and went, without waiting to be called.' If 
the reader were * to infer ' the crime of Balaam, we might 
attribute a variety of crimes to the son of Beor ; for every 
reader would form his own conclusion as to the crime ; but 
to suppose that his crime consisted in his readiness to go with 
the princes of Balak, without their first calling on him, is too 
trifling for remark. They came for the express purpose, 
and Balaam had told them to wait till the morning, till he 
had received further information, and God permitted him to 
accompany them. Therefore, to the present day, we remain 
in profound ignorance respecting the crime of Balaam ; and 
the holy character of God, by whose permission he went, is 
charged with inconsistency and injustice, in being angry at 
his going, and in opposing him on the way." . 

Verse 22.—*' Angel of the Lord " MeLAK 

JEUE* The angel of the Lord stands in the way as |I^t2) 
SheTeN, which is here called adversary." The same word 
is in Job i., 6, 7, &c., written Satan. This angel of the 
Lord is represented with a *' drawn sword," as though 
there were in reality an angelic armoury and harness of war 
for the angels. 

Verse 28. — And the Lord opened the mouth of the ass 
and she said." The pious Bellamy here repudiates our 
version. He says objectors say, " This statement, as it 
stands in the common version, exceeds everythhig in impos- 



* See Pye Smith's Christian Theology," p. 2^8, McCauPs, 
Kimchi on Zechariah, p. 9. Parkhurst's LexicoR, p. 368, Bible 
what it is," p. 125, Genesis, and 168 Exodus, 



364 



NUMBERS : 



eee the land whicli I have given unto the children of Israel.** 

The Septuagint reads, Here ascend the mountain which is 
near the passage of the Jordan, the mount Nebo, and see 
the land of Canaan." 

Chap. XXX » — Cahen gives the following resume of the 
solemn sacrifices, Dailj, 2 lambs ; Sabbath, 2 lambs ; first 
of each month, 2 bulls, a ram, 7 lambs and a goat, total 11 ; 
Passover, 2 bulls, a ram, 7 lambs and a goat, total 11 ; 
Pentecost, the same, total 11 ; Trumpet Day, the same, total 
11; Day of Atonement, the same, total 11; and of the 
tabernacles, 69 bulls, 105 lambs, 15 rams, 8 goats, total 197.'* 
Thus in 52 weeks they sacriiice 400 victims in addition to 
the individual sacrifices. This continual effusion of blood 
would necessarily give the Levites a hard and cruel cha- 
racter.* 

Chap. XXX. 1. — In the Septuagint this verse is verse 40 
of chap, xxxix. 

Chap. xxii. 1. — On this side Jordan, by Jericho:" the 
Douay has it over against where Jericho is situate beyond 
the Jordan:" Bellamy, who says that the translation in 
our version is not accurate, gives it " on the passage by 
Jordan of Jericho," which reads very obscurely ; the Hebrew 
is (beyond, across, over, or on the other side). In 

Numbers, xxi. 13, our own translators make the same 
word ''other side," which they here make this side."t 
It is evident in this case either that the translators 
must have falsified the text to support their theory that Moses 
was the writer of the book, or that there is a very extraordi- 
nary coincidence of error. 

Verse 9 — " And God came unto Balaam, and said, wha6 
men are these with thee ?" Many object that such a ques- 
tion from the All-wise is an absurdity ; it is as reasonable ai 
" Adam, where art thou?" More than one pious writer has 
been tempted to regard the story of Balaam as a legend. In 
verse 8, the word translated Lord " is mil*' JEUE, in 

verse 9, God " is U^vh"^ ALEIM ; verse 22, And God's 



* Nombres, p 143. 

t This subject has been rather fully examined in Dr. Giles's 
<^ Hebrew Records," pp. 284 to 289. But see Home's Introdu^. 
tion, contra. 



ITS AUTHENTICITY AND CREDIBILITY. 



365 



to the lot shall the possession thereof be divided between 
many and few." Bellamy* remarks that it has been 
objected that if the determination were to be by lot 
it was most improbable, nay, nearly impossible, that 
the chance of the lottery should always be the larger 
portion to the largest number. Cahen addst that according 
to the maps Simeon, the least numerous tribe, had an allot- 
ment as large in superficial extent as Dan, nearly the 
Btrongest. 

Verse 58. — The Septuagint omits the Mahlites, and 
reverses the order of the Korathites and Mushites. 
Cahen, after giving the result of the two numberings— 





1st numbering 


2nd numbering 


Variation, 




Numbers, chap. 1. 


Chap 26. 




Eeuben 


46.500 


43,730 


2770 


Simeon 


59.300 


22 200 


37,100 


Gad 


45,650 


40,500 


5150 


Judah 


74,600 


76,500 


1900 


Issachar 


54,400 


64,300 


9900 


Zebulun 


57,400 


60.500 


3100 


Ephraim 


40,500 


32.500 


8000 


Manasseh 


32,200 
35,400 


52,700 


20,500 


Benjamin 


45,600 


10.200 


Dan 


62,700 


64.400 


1700 


Asher 


41,500 


53,400 


11.900 


Napthali 


53,400 


45,400 


8000 




603,550 


601,730 


1820 


Levites 


22,000 


23,000 


1000 



adds — Thus, despite the forty years, and notwithstanding 
the miserable life that the Israelites had led in the desert, 
in the face of plagues, diseases, pestilence, and wars, there 
was only a reduction of 1,820 Israelites, and an augmentation 
of ] ,000 priests. Such results are not in the domain of 
natural things, and as a consequence are not in any way 
historic."J It is specially noteworthy that all the Israelites 
now numbered were men not included in the former 
census. 

Chap.xxvii. J 2. — Get thee up into this mount Abarim, and 

* New Translation, p. 427. 
t Nombres, p. 133. 
I Nombres, p. 132. 



366 



imMBEES : 



sibility thai we meet with in the tales of the Talmud, the 
legends of the Koran, or the Veda of Brahma. It is true 
that a miracle is held forth bjthe translators, for which there 
is not any authority in the original ; a miracle for whichthere 
was no necessity. Had such a miracle been done, some wise end 
must have been intended, but Balaam was not convicted by 
the speaking of the ass. He remained in the same state of 
mind, and would have killed the creature had he not been 
convicted by the unexpected visit and reproof of the mes- 
senger. Thus was the necessity of any miracle superseded 
by the presence of the messenger, or principal man in the 
ministry, under whose government Balaam officiated, who 
on seeing him beat the ass, accosted him by saying — Where^ 
fore hast thou smitten thine ass f and thus reproved the mad^ 
ness of Balaam, Beside, a circumstance of so very extra- 
ordinary a nature would, no doubt, have alarmed Balaam ; 
but we find, as it is stated in the common version, that he 
was neither alarmed nor surprised, as if he had been accus- 
tomed to converse with the animal and with angelic beings. 
This, as observed, has been the opinion from the earliest 
ages among Christians ; an opinion founded on an erroneous 
translation of the passage, propagated from the time of 
Jercme, continued in the Vulgate, and finally copied into all 
the European translations ; where it has been kept by 
bigotry and superstition to the present day, without appeal- 
ing to the Hebrew verity."* 

It is scarcely wonderful that the Midianites and Moabites 
should have looked upon Balaam as a prophet, whose curse 
or blessing would affect the success of the Jews. In the 
early ages we have many instances of persons revered 
the people of their countries, and believed to possess supe^*- 
natural powers of benefiting by blessing, or injuring by 
cursing. Amongst savage people such a superstition is 
common even to-day, and indeed has only died out amongst 
ourselves with the decay of the belief in witchcraft. The 
blessing or curse of the Pope still has its power for Eoman 
Catholics ; but is an inexplicable matter when we find the 
superstitions of the ignorant people shared by God himself. 
God communicated with Balaam, saying, Thou shalt not 
curse this people." God at first forbade Balaam to go to 
Balak, afterwards gave him permission, and then God's anger 



ITS AUTHENTICITY AND CREDIBILITY. 36? 



is kindled because Balaam, using the permission, went with 
Balak's messengers, and the angel of the Lord is sent to stand 
in Balaam's way. This angel is at first invisible to the wise 
man, Balaam, but is at once perceived bv his ass. This angel 
has his sword drawn in his hand " — this sword (being also 
at first only visible to the ass), must have been diff'erent 
material from the swords commonly in use. The ass obsti- 
nately refusing to go forward, is thrice beaten by Balaam. 
The ass indignantly remonstrates, inquiring why he is beaten, 
and Balaam manifests no surprise that his ass should speak. 
In any other book than the Bible none would regard this 
as other than fable. 

Chap, sxiii. — God is not a man that he should lie ; neither 
the son of man, that he should repent : hath he said, and 
shall he not do it ? or hath he spoken, and shall he not 
make it good Genesis, vi. 6. — And it repented the 
Lord that he had made man on the earth, and it grieved 
him at his heart/^ 1 Samuel sv. 11. — ^'It repenteth me 
that I have set up Saul to be king.'' Verse 35. — ^-And 
the Lord repented that he had made Saul king over Israel.*' 
2 Samuel xxiv, 11. — *'And the Lord repented him of the 
evil.*' Exodus xxxii. 14. — And the Lord repented of the 
evil which he thought to do unto his people.'' Verse 21. — 
^*He hath not beheld iniquity in Jacob, neither hath he seen 
perverseness in Israel." VThat does the text mean then in 
Numbers xiv. 11 and 22, and Exodus xxxii. 9 ? &c. 

Chap. xxxi. gives an account of the slaughter of the Midi- 
anites, and the destruction of their " cities " and goodly 
castles " by 12,000 Jews, and the capture of 32,000 virgins, 
675.000 sheep, 72,000 oxen, and 61,000 asses.* The number 
of slain is not given, but it is easy to ascertain a minimum, 
if we reckon to each virgin for father, mother, brother, mar- 
ried sisters and their husbands, and other married females 
and their husbands, an average of four persons — which I 
conceive will be an estimate much under the true amount — 
we shall find 123,000 to have been slaughtered by 12,000 
Jews, who on their side did not lose a singlp soldier. The 
Hebrew list of killed and wounded is a blank page. This is a 
statement which would be rather difficult for an old soldier 



* Pentateuch^ part 1, p. 144. 



S68 



NUMBERS J 



to believe. This difficulty is increased when we remember 
that the Midianites dwelt in cities " and " goodly castles," 
under shelter of which they could have contended against 
the attacks of the Jews. After all this fighting, the tired 
warriors must have had considerable trouble (especially if 
the captives merely opposed passive resistance) in bringing 
back the spoil, which averaged to each man (supposing that 
all the Jewish soldiers had escaped unhurt) nearly three 
virgins, fifty-six sheep, six oxen, and five asses, besides gold, 
silver, lead, iron, tin, brass, jewels, and other spoil. The 
Jews, however, were mighty warriors; and it has been pre- 
viously noticed how two men slaughtered the whole of the 
inhabitants of a city. Verse 7^ which says that the Jews 
slew all the males," must be positively untrue, because if 
all were killed except the 32,000 virgins taken captive, there 
would be an end to the Midianitish nation ; while in Judges, 
chap, vi., we actually find the Midianites more powerful than 
the Israelites. Bishop Colenso, who deals with this 
subject in almost the exact words of my former 
commentary, published some years prior to thej Bishop's 
book, says, How is it possible to quote the Bible as 
in any way condemning slavery, when we read here 
of Jehovah's tribute of slaves Hhirty-two persons 
Dr. Colenso raises the further objection that taking 
the various other events crowded together after the death 
of Joshua, there was not time for the war [on Midian. 
Cahen adds that the Midianitish slaughter is unmentioned 
in Deuteronomy, and declares that the numbers given in 
this chapter cannot be regarded as historical. 

Verse 2.— The words ^D«n 'nn« ACh^^R TASePh, 
translated, ^' afterwards shalt thou be gathered " in our ver- 
sion, are given by Jacob Ben Chajim* as one of the five 
instances in which the Itur Sopherim is shown. 

Verse 8. — " Eeba." The Septuagint reads this Rohok. 

Verse 15. — And Moses said unto them, have ye saved 
all the women alive 

Verse 16. — '* Behold, these caused the children of Israel, 
through the counsel of Balaam, to commit trespass against 
the Lord in the matter of Peor, and there was a plague 



• Introduction to Rabinical Bible, p. 12. 



ITS AUTHENTICITY AND CREDIBILITY. 



369 



among the congregation of the Lord.'' This counsel of 
Balaam is mentioned at length by Josephus,* but not in the 
Pentateuch. Have we lost the account from out of our 
sacred Scriptures ? The Talmudic writings contain some 
similar statement. 

Yerse 17. — "Now therefore kill ev^ery male among the 
little ones, and kill every woman that hath known man by 
lying with him." Cahen observes : We have here pre- 
sented to us a terrible bath of blood. Even amongst the most 
cruel and most savage nations they had always spared the 
women and infants of both sexes. The legislator of the 
Hebrews was in no respect warlike, but, as the Bible pre- 
sents him, was harsh and inflexible, and, like Samuel, with- 
out pity in his vengeance. In his adolescence he killed the 
Egyptian, in the case of the golden calf, where his brother 
was so much compromised, he ordered one portion of the 
people to slaughter the other, and now he ordams a massacre 
of women and children whom the warriors in their humanity 
had spartid.t Le Clerc suggests that God would recompense 
the infants in the next world, but such an apology trenches 
on the ironical." 

Verse 18. —This command appears likely to produce a repe- 
tition of the conduct condemned as an offence in c. xxv., and 
for which the Israelites were then so heavily punished. 

Verse 22. — From the manner in which and flNI are 
written in this verse, the Massorah say that the gold 
belongs to the king," and the meaning is that this passage 
ought to be so. They demonstrate this from some fancied 
similarity in the construction of Joshua ix. 1. We lament 
our inability to comprehend the Massoretic explanation, and 
refer the more erudite to Jacob ben Chajim.J 

Verse 40. — And the persons were sixteen thousand, of 
which the Lord's tribute was thirty and two persons.'' 
W^hat became of the persons who fell to the Lord's share — 
were they ofiered as human sacrifice ?§ The beasts were so 
offered ; what became of the human beings ? Human sacri- 



* Antiquities, Book 4, c. 6, § 6, 
t Cahen, Xombres, 148. 
X Introduction, p. 31. 

$ See commentary on Exodus, p. 200, and Leviticus, p. 334. 



870 



NUMBERS : 



fices prevailed amongst the ancient and barbarous peoples of 
the world, the Hebrew race were certainly no exceptions of 
mildness and kindliness. 

Hartwell Horne takes notice of the objection raised to the 
cruelty involved in this chapter ; his explanation is, however, 
very weak. He says that God, having determined the ex- 
, tirpation of the iVJidianitish nation, it was necessary to 
destroy all the males; but he forgets conveniently that 
although all the Midianitish men were destroyed, the Midi- 
anites were nevertheless not extirpated.^ This forgetfulness 
is the more remarkable as in another partf of his work he 
does recollect that the Midianites so far recovered their 
total extermination as to conquer the Israelities and make 
them tributaries. 

In another place Horne tries to meet the contradiction 
between this chapter and Judges by sayingj it is not said 
that all the males were extirpated." Surely verse 7 is con- 
clusive; it absolutely says, *'and they slew all the males.'* 
Kalisch reminds us that the Levites, though exempt from 
military service, had a share in the booty of the war. 
Bishop Watson§ says that he sees nothing in this account 
" but good policy combined with mercy." 

Chap, xxxii. 40. — Machir must mean the tribe of Man- 
asseh, or descendants of Machir — Machir himself must have 
been long since dead (see Genesis 1. 23.) 

Verse. 41. — Jair is here reckoned without explanation, 
as of the tribe of Manasseh, although, according to 1 Chron. 
ii. 21, he was by the paternal side of the tribe of Judah. 

Chap, xxxiii. — Goethe, in his * Westostlicher Divan,' cri- 
ticising the wilderness wanderings, urges that about thirty- 
eight out of the forty years are left unaccounted for, and 
that the stations given in this chapter are greatly in excess 
of those named in the narrative as given by Exodus, Leviti- 
cus, Numbers, and Deuteronomy. Goethe has tabulated 
most of the following details, (| 



* Hartwell Horne, vol. i., app. 3, sec. 5, par. 7. 

t Vol. 3, part 1, cap. 1, § 3. 

j Vol. 1, appendix 3, sec. 6, par. 33. 

§ Letter 3 to Thomas Paine. 

II But see Hartwell Horne, vol. 1, p. 54t4i. 



ITS AUTHENTICITY AND CEEDIBILITT. 371 

Verse 8.—^* Wilderness of Etham " is in Exodus xv. 22, 
" Wilderness of Shur." 

Verse 10. — " And they removed from Elim, and encamped 
by the Eed Sea." 

Verse 11. — And they removed from the Red Sea, and 
encamped in the wilderness of sin." The encampment by 
the Eed Sea is not mentioned in Exodus, which in xvi. 1 
takes the Israelites from Elim to the wilderness of sin 
without intervening station. 

Verse 12. — Dopkah." The Septuagint has Eapha- 
kah." In this and the following verse neither Dophkah nor 
Alush are mentioned in Exodus, which c. xvii. 1 takes the 
Jews from the w^ilderness of sin to Eephidim. 

Verse J 6. — " Taberah." Numbers xix. 3 is not mentioned 
here, but it is not clear that it was a separate station. 

Verse 18. — According to Goethe, neither Eithmah nor 
any of the seventeen following places are in any way alluded 
to in the narrative of the Israelitish wanderings ; but 
although Groethe was accurate in stating that none of the 
stations from Eithmah toHashmonah appear to be mentioned, 
yet a reference in Deut. x. 6 must have escaped the German 
poet. 

Verse 22. — Kehelathah." Here and in the next verse 
the Septuagint substitutes 3faJceUath, 

Verse 26. — Tahath." In this and the following verse 
the Septuagint reads KataatJi.'' 

Verse 27. — Tarah." Here and in verse 28, the Septu- 
agint has " Tarath,'' the H being mistaken for TS , or vice 
verm. 

Verse 29. — " Hashmonah.'' Here and in verse 30 the 
Septuagint has Selmona, 

Verse 31. — *'And they departed from Moseroth, and 
pitched in Bene-jaakan." In the Septuagint, Bene-jaakan 
is written Banaia, In Deuteronomy x. 6, Bene-jaakan 
comes before Moseroth (there written Mosera), and from 
Mosera, according to Deuteronomy, the Israelites go to 
Gudgodah, which I suppose is identical with Horadgidgad, 
which in verse 32 of this chapter they reach from Bene- 
jaakan. 

Verse 35. — Ezion-gaber occurs in quite a different 
order before Bene-jaakan and Moseroth. (See Deutero- 
nomy ii. 8.) 



372 



NUMBERS : 



Verse 38.— There is a clear contradiction between this 
verse and chap. xx. 23 — 29, on the one hand, and Deutero- 
nomy X. 6. Horne explains this transaction in two modes. 
First, he says that the same place might have different 
names, and next, he says that both our version and the 
Hebrew text omit several things which are preserved in 
the Samaritan version, and which would remove the diiE- 
culty. 

Verse 42. — Zalmonah and Punon." Neither of these 
are mentioned between Hor and Oboth in chap.xxi., after 
Izeabarim ; several stations are mentioned in Numbers xxi. 
12, 19, 20, 25, and 33, which are left here without notice. 

Verse 46. — Neither of the stations here named are other- 
wise mentioned in the Pentateuch as encampments ; but we 
are told, chap, xxxii. 34, that the children of Gad built 
Dibon, so that Dibon-Gad, or Dibon of the children of Gad, 
would almost be a post-Mosaic name. 

Chap, xxxiv. — Cahen regards this chapter as evidently 
written after the conquest. 

Verse 4. — " Addar " in the Septuagint is Arad. 

Verse 7. — Horne says* that " Mount Hor" of our ver- 
sion is incorrect, as confusing the north and southern 
boundaries. The Douay has, most high mountain." 
Cahen says that it is evidently not the mountain upon 
which Aaron died. 

Verse 8. — " Zedad" in the Septuagint is Saradah. 

Verse 9. — " Zephron " in the Septuagint is Dephrona, 
" Hazarenan " in the same is Arsenain, 

Verse 10. — " Shepham " is Sevphamar in the Septuagint. 

Verse 11.—^*^ Riblah " is Belah in the Septuagint. 

Chap. XXXV. 4. — A thousand cubits." The Septuagint 
says " two thousand," and Cahen renmrks that it is evident 
that there is here a fault in the Hebrew text, as two thou- 
sand appears from the following verse to be the correct 
number. The Eabbis, discovering the contradiction between 
verses 4 and 5 as to the one thousand and two thousand 
cubits, resort to a variety of hypotheses for the purpose of 
explaining it away.t 



* Introduction, vol. iii., part 1, cap. 1. 
t Cahen sur la Zoi^e des Villes Levitiques. 



ITS AUTHENTICITY AND CREDIBILITY. 373 

Verse 14. — On this side Jordan." The Douay reads, 
"beyond the Jordan," The remarks on page 364 apply 
equally to this text. 

At the end of the book of Numbers, Cahen has given a 
translation from the 5th book of the laws of Menu. A great 
antiquity has been claimed for these laws which exhibit 
many points of similarity with Hebrew enactments. The 
Jewish legislation has trodden in the same path as the Indian 
and Egyptian, probably the Egyptian. 

In the most recent volume of Dr. Kalisch we see that this 
painstaking and learned commentator does not hesitate to 
declare his opinion that parts of Leviticus and Numbers have 
been written since the Babylonish Captivity, 

The following extract from his volume* will not be out 
of place here — Though the question whether the Levitical 
income, as fixed in the middle Books of the Pentateuch, was 
excessive or not, is of little practical moment; it is yet of 
considerable historical interest, as it is calculated to illustrate 
the character of an important part of the legislation. It is 
utterly inappropriate to found the claims of the Levites 
upon the plea that they had a legal right to the twelfth or 
thirteenth part of the territory of Canaan, which they ceded 
to the other tribes, and for which they could demand ample 
sustenance. It is true that the Book of Numbers represents 
the matter in this light ; for it ordains that the towns should 
be given to the Levites, '^from the inheritance of their 
possession." But it requires, after the preceding observa- 
tions, no further arguments to prove that this is nothing 
but a Levitical view or rather pretence. The tribe of Levi 
had, by its own daring and recklessness, forfeited the terri- 
torial possessions which it might have owned ; and, scattered 
through the land, it was compelled to seek subsistence by 
whatever means it could devise. In reality the priests and 
Levites could fairly demand compensation for their minis- 
terial and other services ; and so their income is indeed re- 
garded in some passages. But if tithes, first fruits, and 
first-born animals, their shares in holocausts and thank- 
ofierings, in expiatory and bloodless oblations, the devoted 
property, the booty of war, the forty-eight towns with their 



* Leviticus, p. 624. 



374 



KtJMBERS : 



surrounding districts, and the manifold minor privileges, are 
surveyed and computed, it will be found that the Levites 
received iniSnitely more than their due proportion. 

According to the double census, recorded in the Book of 
Numbers, the Israelites over twenty years of age amounted, 
in round figures, to 600,000, the Levites over one month to 
22,000, which, at a very moderate calculation, would be 
about 17,000 over twenty years ; the proportion of Levites 
to Israelites was, therefore, as 17,000 to 600,000; that is, 
the Levites formed about the thirty-fifth part of the Israel- 
ites. But by the tithes alone they received the tenth part 
of the whole agricultural produce of the soil, and of the 
annual increase of cattle. One Levite had, therefore, frpm 
this source only, an income equivalent to that of three or 
four Israelites. If the other revenues are added, they must 
indeed be regarded as exorbitant ; and it has been observed 
that if all the enactments of the Pentateuch had been carried 
out, the priests would soon, without working, have acquired 
all the property of the land. Though the Levites increased 
their income grew proportionately ; for industry and agricul- 
ture, and therefore the Levitical revenues, kept pace with 
the growth of the population, and in some periods, the 
territory or arable land of the Hebrews was considerably 
enlarged. It is irrelevant to enquire whether all the pre- 
scribed imposts were burdensome to the Israelites or not in 
a land of remarkable fertility ; the question is, whether 
they were fairly required for the sustenance of the Levites. 
If wealth was obtained through the fruitfulness of the soil, 
it belonged more justly to those who produced it by their 
exertions.* 

The same author, a few pages earlier, gives us several 
instances in which there is a disagreement between Numbers 
and the other Pentateuchal books, and in which that dis- 
agreement is in favour of the Levites ; as, for example, 
between Numbers xviii. 17, 18, where the whole of a firstling 
is dev^oted to the priest and the Lord, while by Deuteronomy 
xii, 17, 18, xiv. 23, xv. 19, 20, it appears that the Israelites 
had nearly the whole of the animal for their own eating. 

As with the firstlings, so the gift of the first fruits to the 



* Leviticus, p. 624). 



ITS AUTHENTICITY AND CREDIBILITY. 875 



priests is in Numbers wide and sweeping, while in Deute- 
ronomy it is very limited. 

Numbers is presented to us as a history of the wanderings 
of the Israelites during nearly forty years, about ^hir^y-eight 
of which are a perfect blank ; it also contains an account of 
some of the wars in which they were engaged. According 
to its English title, it professes to be the work of the same 
writer as the Book of Genesis ; but in this respect its pre- 
tensions at once fail, for it is not at all probable that one 
man would make such strange variations in writing the 
names of the persons and places referred to in the course of 
this commentary. It cannot be revelation from God, because 
it contains a variety of errors, some evidently copyist's 
blunders, others arising from the imperfect blending of 
several documents; because it pictures a God of great 
mercy and long suffering, ordering indiscriminate and mer- 
ciless slaughter, as in the case of the Midianites ; because 
it assumes that the curse or blessing of Balaam would affect 
the welfare of the Israelites, and represents an omniscient 
and immutable Deity as forgiving or punishing sinners 
according as they sprinkled or neglected to sprinkle them- 
selves with water in which had been mixed the ashes of a 
burnt red cow ; because it is evidently wholly, or in some 
part, compiled from other and earlier writings, and there- 
fore never was an original. As a narration of events, it 
must be regarded with extreme suspicion. The numberings 
of the Jews in chapter i. must be considered as suppositious ; 
and the account of the wholesale slaughter of the Midianites 
is evidently untrue. As an educational book, it is entirely 
without merit, and affords neither instruction nor amuse- 
ment to its reader, unless, indeed, he be of a suflSciently 
depraved character to enable him to find amusement in adding 
together the thousands of Israelites slaughtered by God, or in 
calculating the probable number of the Midianites slain by 
the children of Israel. 



I THE BIBLE : WHAT IT IS. 

V* 13 A n ir 



DEUTERONOMY : 

ITS AUTHENTICITY AND CEEDIBILITY. 



BY 

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ITS AUTHENTICITY AJSD CEEDIBILITY. 



D^nnin nb« ale EDeBeEIM These the words " is the 
Hebrew title of this book, but that title is generally shortened 
to the word DeBeEIM. The Septuagint gives this volume 
the name JJeuieronomion, which, aHhough. signifying a second 
law, is, as Cahen says, used here rather to denote a repeti- 
tion of the laws already given in the preceding books. The 
word Mishna also applied to this book has the same sense of 
"repetition.*' The words the fifth book of Moses " given 
in our version are neither in the Greek nor in the Hebrew. 
The Massora count in Deuteronomy 10 parscioth, 21 sedarim, 
9055 verses, 16394 words, 54892 letters.* Colenso con- 
tends that the great difference in style between this and the 
other four books of the Pentateuch at once mark for it 
another author and probably a later age.t Several exnmples 
of difierences of expression are given by the Bishop of 
Natal ;t of ideas and words found in Deuteronomy alone, or 
found in the other four books and not in this. He concludes 
that it is impossible that any writer could in a brief period 
have so changed his whole tone of thought and expresssion 
as he must have done to account for the difierences between 
Deuteronomy and the four preceding books if they are all 
supposed to be the work of one pen, and urges it as a fact 
proved, ''that whoever may have composed the book of 
Deuteronomy, he was undoubtedly a different person from 
those who were concerned in writing the main portions of 
the rest of the Pentateuch." Kalisch notices that the book 
of Deuteronomy is not quite so favourable to the priests as 
are some other portions of the Pentateuch, and considering 



* Simon, Histoire Critique du vieux text, p. 141. 
t Colenso, part 3, pp. 391-393. 
t Ibid, p. 396 to 404. 



378 



ITS AUTHENTICITY AND CaEDIBILITT. 



Deuteronomy as composed when the priests had not yet 
gained full power over the Israelitiah mind, he assigns to 
Leviticus a later date than to the fifth book. Dr. Colenso 
regards the book of Deuteronomy as mainly the work of one 
writer, and puts the date of its composition some 800 years 
after the Mosaic era.* De Wettef says, "In addition to the 
Jehovistic stylo, this book has some peculiarities of its own, 
not only in forms of speech and words. There is a diffuse 
fulness of words which can scarcely be explained from the 
rehetorical design of the author," M. Nicolas says.J " It 
is beyond doubt to-day that Deuteronomy bears the marks 
of a writing of the later period of the Jewish Monarchy, 
and that out of the five books of the Pentateuch, it contains 
the least of truly ancient documents." 

Chap. i. 1 and 5, and chap. iv. 41 and 46. — " On this side 
Jordan the Douay has beyond the Jordan " in each in- 
stance.§ This is one of the twelve difficult passages to 
which Aben Ezra^ refers as not written by Moses, but the 
translators m our orthodox version have avoided the diffi- 
culty. The Septuagint, the Latin, and many other versions 
agree with the Douay. Bellamy writes it'^at the passage 
of the Jordan," the Red Sea." This must be a mistake ; 
any place between those mentioned would, according to the 
orthodox maps, be quite away from the Eed Sea The 
word is STJPh ; the Eed Sea is usually written with 

D*^ IM ; IM STJPh. Tophel and Dizahab are unknown places, 
and are not mentioned in the list of stations in Numbers. 
Instead of writing Dizahab as a separate place, the Douay 
says after Haseroth, " where there is very much gold,'^ 
giving this as a literal translation of the word, as though it 
were a description of Haseroth and not a distinct place. The 
Septuagint, in lieu of Hazeroth, has Aulon^ and translates 
afterwards Dizahab in the same manner as the Douay. Dr, 
Colensott says, The account of the appointment of officers 

♦ Ibid, pp. 430. t Introduction, vol 2;, sec. 150. 

% Etudes sur la Bible, p. 9. 
§ See Numbers, Bible : what it is, Book 4. 
^ Spinoza Tractatus, Thelogico-Politicua, cap. 8; but see Horn«' B 
Iritroduction, vol. 1, c. 2, p. 64. 
** Hartwell Horne, vol. 4, p. 21. Jones, Eiblical CyclopeBdift, 
tt Part 8, p, 433. 



379 



as here given inTolres more than one inconsistencr. First, 
the Deuteronomist loses sight of the fact that, according to 
the story (2s. xxvi. 64), the \vhoie generation was dead 
which received the law at Horeb ; and so be makes Mose? 
say, V. 6, * Jehov ah our God spoke unto us in Horeb/ and 
stiU more distinctly, v. 9, I spake unto you at that time, 
saying, I am ivA able to bear you myself alone and t. 14^ 
' Ye answered me and said; But a more rem^arkable dis- 
crepancy exists in v. 15, where the statement is wholly at 
variance with that in E. xviii. 25, 26. In this latter pas- 
sage the appointment of the officers take place before the 
giving of the law at Sinai ; here it takes place nearly twelve 
months aftervvards, when they ziejust about io lecrce Horeb, 
V. 6. If it be said that we must extend the meaning of the 
phrase *at that time' (in v. 9 — IS) to include the whole 
twelve months, and must suppose that the fact stated in 
V. 6 — 8 occurred in point of time subsequently to that in 
T. 9 — 18 ; yet both these accounts are contradictory to 
that in N. xi. 14—17, where^ after they have left Horeb ^ 
Moses complains of the burden of the people (though 
according to either of the other two statements, he had a 
multitude of officers to help him)^ and he is commanded 
then to appoint seventy elders, ^aud they shall bear the 
burden of the people with thee, that thou bear it not thy- 
self alone.' One portion of Dr. Colenso's criticism requires 
the qualification that a large number of the Jewish children 
not numbered in the census might have beeii alive. The 
words of Nitobers and Deuteronomy are vtry misleading. 
Another difficulty is that here the judges and rulers are 
appointed on the suggestion of Moses with the assent of the 
people, while in Exodus xviii. Moses does all this at the in- 
stance of Jethro, his father-in-law, here unmentioned.* 

Verse 10. — Ye are this day as the stars of heaven for 
multitude." We are told in chap, vii. 7, that when God 
chose the Jews, they were the -^fewest of all people." This 
verse 10 is purely an oriental figure of speech, but we 
allude to it here for the purpose of shovving how miserable 
are some of the attempts at explanation. Horne, in defi- 
snce of the precise words of the ttixt, argues that if the 

• But Bartwell Horne, Toi, 1, App. 3, sec, 6. 



I 



380 



ITS AUTHFNTICITYATiTB CEEBIBILITT. 



aggregate number of the Israelites* who have ever lived 
could be ascertained, it would be found far to exceed the 
number of all the fixed stars.'' Thus Bible contradictions 
are reconciled by devout commentators. 

Verse 15. — '' Captains over thousands." The Douav has, 
rulers, tribunes," and instead of officers amongst your 
tribes," has, who might teach you all things." 

Verse 22. — " And ye came near unto me every one of 
you, and said." This is simply impossible. The bulk of 
those who came to him must have been dead, accordinof to 
Numbers xiii. 1 and 2, the sending the searchers was by the 
direction of God; here it is made as if at the instance of 
the Israelites. 

Verses 37 to 39. — " Also Jehovah was angry with me for 
your sakes, saying Thou also shalt not go in thither. But 
Joshua, the son of Fun, which standeth before thee, he 
shall go in thither ; encourage him, for he shall cause Israel 
to inherit it. Moreover, your little ones, which ye said 
should be a prey, and your children which in that day had 
no knowledge between good and evil, they shall go in thither, 
and unto them will I give it, and they shall possess it. But 
as for you, turn you, and' take your journey into the wil- 
derness by the way of the Eed Sea." ^* Here again," says 
Colenso,'* the Deuteronomist, though thoroughly imbued with 
a general notion of the story, seems to have lost sight of 
the particular fact that Moses was sentenced to die, and 
Joshua appointed to succeed him, not at the time which is 
here referred to — in the days of the former generation, but 
after an interval of thirty-seven years, at the end of the 
wanderings, N» xxvii. 15 — 23, only a few months before 
this address is supposed to be delivered. The fact may be 
that, knowing that Caleb and Joshua were excepted in the 
story from the general doom, he names Caleb as so" ex- 
cepted in V. 36, and then goes on to mention Joshua as also 
excepted, but inadvertently anticipating his appointment to 
succeed Moses, and so falling also into the anachronism of 
ante-dating the doom of Moses."t 

* Introduction, vol. 1, App. 3, sec. 8. 
t Cahen, Deuteronome, p. 5 ; Colenso, part 3, p. 434. 
X Colenso, part 3, p. 435; see also l)e Wette on the Books "of 
Moees, sec. 166. 



381 



Chap. ii. 11. — Accounted giants.'* Bellamy"^ makes giants 
into apostates throughout this chapter^ urging that it wacs 
utterly impossible for a whole nation to be giants. 

Verse 12. — The Horims also dwelt in Seir beforetime ; 
but the children of Esau succeeded them, when they had 
destroyed them from before them, and dwelt in their stead, 
as Israel did unto the land of his possession, which the Lord 
gave unto them.'* This verse is evidently from the pen of 
a writer living after the Israelites had possession of the 
land. Colensot says, " These words are a mere parenthe- 
tical interruption of the narrative. But in the time of 
Moses, Israel had not done this unto the land of Canaan, 
which, surely and not the country on the other side of the 
Jordan is meant by the * land of his possession.' Some 
critics regard the whole of the 10th, 11th, and 12th verses as 
an interpolation, partly because they interrupt the words of 
the Lord which recommence in verse 13, and because of 
the post-3Iosaic language of verse 12. 

Verse 20. —^^Zamzummims." The Septuagint has Sochom- 
mim. 

Verse 23. — Hazerim.'* The Septuagint has Asedod 
and Gazes instead of Azzah. In lieu of ^' Capbtorim " the 
Douay has Cappadocians," following the Septuagint, 
which agrees with the Targum of Onkelos. Bellamy says 
that verses 20 to 23 should be read as in a parenthesis, 
other critics speak of them as an interpolation interrupting 
again the Lord's speech, and evidently from some later hand. 

Verse 29.-- -The statement of the text that the Edomites 
sold meat and water to the Israelites is utterly at variance 
with Numbers xx., 18 to 21, and Deuteronomy xsiii., 3 and 4. 

Verse 30. — ^' The Lord thy God hardened his spirit, and 
made his heart obstinate.^' The hardening of heart " has 
been already remarked uponj in the case of Pharaoh. Such 
texts as this clearly demonstrate, to even the most obtuse 
mind, that the Book cannot be a revelation from an immu- 
table Deity. That a merciful and loving G-od should harden 
any man's heart is unreasonable in the extreme ; and that 
he should do it to a monarch for the purpose of affording 

• New Translation, p. 453. t Part 2, p. 214. 
t Exodus, p. 196. 



382 



ITS AUTHENTICITY AND CREDIBILITY. 



an excuse for slaughter of that monarch's subjects is a blas- 
phemous proposition, which every Theist ought to deny. 
Can men wonder that Atheists grow in number, when the 
character of the Deity is delineated by the Penrateuchal 
writers in such a contradictory and absurd manner? A just : 
God grossly unjust, a merciful G-od cruel in the extreme, | 
an immutable God constantly changing ; in fact, a God con« 
sistent only in the attribute of incomprehensibility • Bel- 
lamy, denying the accuracy of our version, says : — In such 
case the King of Heshbon was not to blame, he was only 
doing that which God impelled him to do, and if the trans- 
lation were accurate, Sihon must have been doing the will 
of God." 

Verse 31. — After Sihon " the Septuagint adds, King of 
Esebon the Amorite;" and in verse 32 ^* King of Esebon." 

Chap. iii. 9. — "Sirion" is by the Septuagint written 
Sanior, and in chap. iv. 48, the same mountain is called 
Sion, which,'' says Horne,* seems to be a contraction or 
a faulty reading." 

Chap. iii. 11. — For only Og, King of Bashan, • re- 
mained of the remnant of giants ; behold, his bedstead was a 
bedstead of iron : is it not in Eabbath of the children of 
Ammon ? nine cubits was the length thereof, and five cubita 
the breadth of it, after the cubit of a man." Dr. Pyle (in 
the Family Bible) remarksf on this passage : — It is pro- 
bable that either Og conveyed his iron bedstead, with other 
furniture of his palace, into the country of the Ammonites, 
to prevent their falling into the hands of the Israelites ; or 
else the Ammonites had taken it from him in some former 
conquest, and kept it as a monument of their victory. Either 
of these cases would be probable, if it could be first proved 
that Moses wrote this verse, and that he knew of Og's bed 
being kept in Eabbath, But as Eabbath was not taken by 
the Israelities until the time of David, as we read in 2 Samuel, 
xii. 26, " And Joab fought against Eabbah, of the children 
of Amman, and took the royal city,'* it is very unlikely that ' 
the Israelites knew anything about the bedstead of King 
Og until then. In the reign of David, five hundred years 

• Introduction, voL 3, part 1, chap 2. 

t See Dr. Giles's Hebrew Hecords, p. 147. 



383 



had passed since Og liyedj and his bedstead had consequently 
become an object of curiosity ; like the great bed of Ware, 
which is still shown in that town, though only three hundred 
years old. It is hardly possible that Moses knew anything 
about this bedstead of King Og, afterwards so famous. 

This verse 11 is another of the famous twelve passages re- 
ferred to by Aben Ezra as against the Mosaic authorship.* 
Vater saysf that it is scarcely probable that Moses could 
have written verse 11. Dead soon after the combat, where 
I'ould he have learned these particulars only known after 
the capture of Eabbath ? Bellamy^ to escape the difficulty, 
conjectures that Og flying from the Israelites took his iron 
bedstead with him to Eabbath, and that Moses learned this 
irom the people of Bashan, Colenso examines several of 
the arguments pro and c<9??.,§ and leaves the passage as one 
of those fatal to the Mosaic authorship. 
Verse 14. — '^Jair, the son of Manasseh^ took all the country 
of Argob unto tl^e coasts of Geshuri and Maachathi, and called 
them after his own name, Bashan-havoth«jair, unto this day." 
Hart well Home admits that the last clause in this verse 
could not have been written by Moses, for it implies a 
writer who lived at least some ages after the settlement 
of the Jews in Palestine. But he says that if the clause was 
inserted by some transcriber in a later age, it does not affect 
the authenticity of the work.[| 

Verse 14. — " Geshuri.'" The Septuagint has GargasL 

Verse 18. — *^ All that are meet for the war/* Bellamy 
says, four words out of the seven in this clause are not 
sanctioned by the original, and the word meet has here no 
meaning/' Cohen makes it all valiant men.** 

Verse 24. — What God is there in heaven, or in earth, that 
can do according to tby work?'^ This is a strange phrase 
from the lips of a man who only believed in one God ; and 
it appears that it has been repeatedly used as an argument 
against monotheism. Bellamy says that the translation 

* Tractatus Theologico-Politicus, chap. 8, Pere Bimon Critique^ 
p. 45. 

t Cahen : Benteronome, p 17. X New Translation, p, 457, 
§ Part 2, p. 215. 

SI Introduction, vol 1, chap, 2, sec. 1, 



384 ITS AUTHENTICITY AND CREDIBILITY. 

of this verse cannot be admitted, for it leads the mind to 
suppose that there are numbers of gods in heaven and gods 
on earth."* 

Chap. iv. 12. — And the Lord spake unto you out of 
the midst of the fire; ye heard the voice of the words, but 
saw no similitude ; only ye heard a voice and v, 15. Ac- 
cording to Exodus, chaps, xx. and xxi., this would hardly be 
the case — chap. xix. 18, affords no corroboration for this 
statement that the Lord spake " out of the midst of the 
fire," nor does it appear that the people heard tlie voice 
of the words,*' for the Lord says to Moses (Exodus, chap, 
xix. 21), " Go down, charge the people," and in chap, xx., 
22, Thus shalt thou say unto the Children of Israel/' 
— Exodus, chap. xxiv. 3, and Deut., chap. v. 5, make 
it clear that the words were announced by Moses. Bel- 
lamy adds — **The erroneous opinion of G-od speaking from 
the midst of the fire is also unintelligible. It was not 
possible for the people to know that the voice came 
from the midst of a fire, such a notion stamps neither 
sanctity, dignity, nor rationality upon the original 
text.'^t In using the words "ye heard" and **ye saw," 
Moses must have forgotten, or rather the writer who puts 
these words in the mouth of Moses must have forgotten 
that " all the generation " who were at Sinai had been con- 
sumed " in the wilderness. Those who heard and saw could 
have been in any case but a minority of the audience now 
addressed. 

Verse 40. — " That thou may est prolong thy days upon 
earth, which the Lord thy God giveth thee, for ever." The 
Douay omits the for ever." Bellamy translates it " pro- 
long time upon the land . . all the days," The earth, 
I suppose, means Judea only, and this has not been held by 
the Jews to the present day, much less iov ever. 

Verses 41 to 43. — These three verses are held by many 
critics to be an interpolation, they have not the slightest 
connection with the preceding or following verses. 

Chap. V. 2. — Jehovah our God made a covenant with us 
at Horeb. Jehovah made not thiscovenant with our fathers, 
but with iiSf even us, who are all of us here alive this day. 



* New Translation, p. 457. t New Translation, p. 459. 



DEtTTEEONOMT : 



385 



Jehovah talked with you face to face in the mount out of the 
midst of the fire. I stood between Jehovah and you at that 
time, to show you the word of Jehovah ; for ye were afraid 
by reason of the fire, and went not up unto the mount." 

Here we have the strongest instances of the oversight 
before referred to. It may, of course be said, in all these 
cases that Moses is addressing the people collectively, and 
that the fathers with whom the covenant was made at Horeb, 
included the children to whom he was now speaking at the 
end of the wanderings. But, if every one of those fathers 
were dead, as the narrative tells us, and only a small pro- 
portion of those now listening to Moses were present on the 
former occasion as children underage, the above words could 
scarcely have been used by one taking note of this circum- 
stance. So do we read in xi. 2 — 7: ^'I speak not with your 
children, which have not known His miracles and His acts, 
which he did in the midst of Egypt, unto Pharaoh the 
King of Egypt, and unto all his land, (S:c., but your eyes 
have seen all the great acts of Jehovah which he did.' * 

Chap. V. 6 to 21, have been already commented on at 
some length, save some variations, which, as Cahen says, are 
most remarkable in a fundamental document (see Commen- 
tary on Exodus, page 239). 

Verse 7. — Before me." Bellamy, Cahen, and Hebrew, 

before my face.'* Cahen says that the Chaldean interpre- 
ters, to avoid the anthropomorphism, never translate the 
word face'' in speaking of God.f 

Verse 12.^ — As the Lord thy God hath commanded thee" 
are wanting in Exodus. 

Kabbi Ben David says, that the law upon the Sabbath is 
frequently repeated in Exodus and Leviticus, and that when- 
ever a reason is given for the law, which is not always the 
case, the Lord's rest after creation is mentioned (see Exodus 
xxxi. 17), and not the departure from Egypt, 

Verse 22. — These words the Lord spake . . . with 
a great voice, and he added no moreP Yet in Exodus xx. 22 
to 26, and in the following chapters, he adds a great deaJ 
more. 

Chap. vi. 2. — And that thy days may be prolonged.'* 



Colenso, part 3, page 448 . t Deuteronome, p- 29. 



f^8f^ ITS ATTTHENTIOITY AND CREDXBILITr. 

Those who are in favour of the doctrine of a future state of 
rewards and punishments, would do well to notice how all 
the penalties and all the bliss are confined to this life in the 
various Hebrew enactments. (See also verse 24 of this 
chapter^) 

Verses 4 to 9 inclusive are regarded as most important by 
the Israelite, being the prayer which the Talmud obliges him to 
repeat morning and evening. The first and last letters of 
tbe 4th verse are v7ritten larger than the rest, and the 
Cabalistic Eabbis trace strange meanings in the numerical 
value of these letters.* This chapter elevates the God 
Jehovah above the gods of the neighbouring nations, but 
writes as if J ehovah might be envious of adoration offered to 
the other deities. 

Yerse 5. — *'Tbou shalt love the Lord thy God with all 
thine heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy might.'* 
Is it possible that the Jews could love a Deity, whom they 
had only seen as smoke and fire, as a pillar of cloud by day, 
and as a pillar ot fire by night ; who had led them from, 
the flesh-pots of Egypt into the sterile sandy desert of sin ? 
If love instead of fear were a necessary consequence of pun« 
ishrnent, the Israelites would, of course, love v^ery strongly ;^ 
but it is surely utterly impossible they could love a God who 
told them that be was a jealous God, whose anger might be 
kindled against them, and who might destroy them from off" 
the face of the earth ; who had tormented them with various 
plagues, for uttering complaints which they could scarce 
avoid. Hunger and thirst would tempt the most contented 
men to murmur ; and yet for these murmurings they had 
been terribly dealt with. All the full grown men who had 
left Egypt had died by the way, either by foreign or civil 
strife and war, by pestilence, fiery serpent, earthquake, or 
fire from heaven, yet " Thou shalt love the Lord.'' A Lord 
of bloody sacrifice, a God who smelled a sweet savour when 
his altar was as an abattoir, and when the fumes of burning 
flesh, hide, fat, and wool, ascended to heaven, This injunc- 1 
tion, Thou shalt love," is more than governed by the i 

Thou shalt fear " of verse 13. 



* Oahen, Deuteronome^ p. 33. 



BBUTEROIS'OMT : 



387 



Verse 16.— Te shali not tempt the Lord jour God, as 
ye tempted him in Massah." The Septuagint, instead of 
•* in Massah/' reads in temptation/' the Douaj "in the 
place of temptation." From the language put into the mouth 
of Jesus in Matt. iv. 7, it would appear as if he understood 
the word tempt to mean here corrupt enticement." 

Chap. vii. 2. — And when the Lord thj God shall deliver 
them before thee, thou shall smite them, and utterly destroy 
them ; thou shalt make no covenant with them, nor show 
mercy unto them." Seef Exodus xxxiv. 6, Deuteronomy iv. 
31, Psalms xxxiii, 5, li. 1, cxvi. 6, cxlv, 8 and 9 ; 2 Chron, 
XXX. 9, Nehemiah ix. Sl^ Micah vii, 18, J Corinthians xiv, 
33. Is it possible a God of mercy, long-suffering, gracious 
kindness, and goodness, could have given such a command 
as this to his people : " Thou shalt smite them and utterly 
destroy them ; thou shalt make no covenant, with them, nor 
show mercy unto them?" Cahen has the following note 
upon this verse* — It is very clear ^ says Gueddes, ^ that the 
total destruction of these peoples is intended in the order 
of Moses. It is equally clear that this order is here repre- 
sented as a divine order. But, he adds, I can scarcely 
believe that God, supremely good and just, could have 
given to Moses and the Israelites an order so sanguinary as 
that which is hero in question. In order to justify such 
a destruction, one refers to earthquakes and other natural 
catastrophes which cause the loss of millions of innocent 
lives ; that similar calamities rest also upon the divine will ; 
and, finally, that the nations whose destruction is here eom« 
manded had merited such a chastisement. But these 
reasons are very weak. In the first place, we do not know 
the first causes of these natural events, and we cannot 
certainly draw any conclusion from them against the princi- 
ple of moral equity, "We cannot represent to ourselves the 
divine will except in connection with his wisdom, his jus- 
tice, and his benevolence towards his creatures. Nay more, 
the Israelites were, according to the Pentateuch itself, a 
sinful people, and were not of much greater worth than the 
other peoples^ But suppose that they were more worthy, 
what was the crime of these massacred innocents, of the 



Deuteronomej p. 38. 



388 



ITS AUTHENTICITY AND OSSjDIBILITY. 



children of the Canaanites ? Certainly the Israelites had 
no more right to attack these people and to expel them 
from their country than these again would have had a right 
to expel the Israelites. He only can make us consider such 
an order as emanating from God, who, being under tho 
necessity of covering these atrocities under the mantle of 
religion, desires to give them a sacred sanction. The In- 
quisitors have acted in this manner, executioners of the 
Moors, the Jews, the Vaudois. For the rest there is no other 
testimony in favour of the divine origin of such an order 
than the assertion of a Hebrew historian. The Canaanites 
must have regarded as very unjust a God who was the 
author of this order, or else supposed it a pure pretext. 
It is more likely then that God never gave it ; it is 
opposed to all moral equity, and we know nothing of it 
except from the party interested in its execution.' To this 
energetic outburst of Gueddes, founded upon a holy and 
legitimate indignation, we will add that the extermination 
of populations is an Asiatic policy, and that we need not 
take for fact the view of a priestly writer. A fanatic, reli- 
gious or political, may fail of pity, but an entire people will 
never fail of it ; the Canaanites were not exterminated."* 
Bellamy, who agrees that a command such as is contained 
in this verse is utterly inconsistent with the book being a 
revelation from God, puts the blame on the incorrectness of 
the translation, and says :t Sorry am I to say that the 
present erroneous translations have, to the disgrace even of 
Christian nations, countenanced such black crimes against 
humanity." Bellamy quotes Dr. Sykes, Dean of Win- 
chester, as endorsing his opinion. 

Verse 3. — " Neither shalt thou make marriages with 
them/' According to the natural sense, marriage with the 
people of these nations is permitted as soon as they have 
abandoned idolatry. It is the opinion of the Eabbi Moses 
Mekoutsi, and it follows that marriage with other nations is 
permitted, without the necessity of the individuals abjuring 
their mode of worship. And in fact these kinds of mar- 
riages do not appear to have been rare. David and Solomon 
took wives from the neighbouring races, and these women 



* Cahen, Nombres, p. 38. t New Translation, pp. 465-470. 



DETTTEEONOMT : 



389 



remained attached to the worship of idols. And yet Solo- 
mon is only blamed for having married women belonging to 
races with whom it was forbidden to make an alliance 
before their abjuration of idolatry, but not at all because 
these women were not of the Israelitish faith. Besides, Deu- 
teronomy permits the Israelites to marry the women taken in 
war ; it prescribes certain formalities^ but it is not a question 
of a change of religion. The Talmudist, St. Paul, even finds 
that these sorts of unions are useful to religion (1 Corinth, 
vii. 14), It is in this manner, says M. Creuzenach 
(Thariag, p. 45), that the Grand Sanhedrim convoked vX 
Paris by Napoleon in 1807, gives its opinion upon the 
marriage of Jews with Christians. Without doubt, con- 
tinues M. Creuzenach, the celebration of marriage, as it is 
celebrated in our time among the Israelites, has need of 
modification if it is to be practised in mixed marriages. 
Nevertheless, he adds, that it is not according to some 
rigorists, the principal difficulty that the Talmud opposes ; 
now the Talmud does not only invalidate the celebration of 
these kinds of marriages, but it regards them as criminal, 
and it invokes on this subject a synodal decision from the 
time of the Hasmonians. The Sanhedrim has always sup- 
posed, with reason, that in that decision it was only a ques- 
tion of marriages between Jews and Pagans, since it was 
taken before the establishment of Christianity. "We will 
add to the excellent observations of M. Creuzenach that the 
marriages between Israelites and Pagans were not unknown 
things. The Bible relates, without adding any reprobation 
of it, as a very simple thing, that the sons of Elimelech 
married Moabites (Euth i. 4). We know that from one of 
them is descended the dynasty of David. It is also well to 
call to mind that the intervention of a rabbi in marriage is 
a measure simply of police and not a religious obligation.* 

Verse 9. — There is a curious jumbling here between our 
version, the Douay, and the Hebrew. The Douay omits 

he is God." The Douay and Cahen add strong" before 
faithful. 

Verse 20. — The hornet." Bellamy says the leprosy.'^ 



* Cahen, IN'ombres^ p. 39, 



390 ITS AUTHENTICITY AND CREDIBILITY. 



Chap. viii. 2.—-^ To prove thee, to know what was in thine 
heart, whether thou w^ouldest keep his commandments^ 
or no," Cahen says that theologians have great trouble to 
reconcile this verse with the divine attribute of foreknow- 
ledge. 

Verse 4.—" Thy raiment waxed not old upon thee, neither 
did thy foot swell, these forty years." The Septuagint in- 
troduces ^' thy shoes are not broken under thee/' see also 
xxix. 5. If this were true, a curiously continuing miracle 
must have been worked. Bellamy* says that it is pre- 
posterously absurd" to accept such a miracle — be objects to 
the translation. No mention is made of this miraculous 
provision of clothing in the older narrative. Kurtz ob- 
serves, iii. 312—313 : The history of the exposition of these 
verses furnishes one of the most striking examples of the ex- 
tent to which a merely literal exegesis of the Scriptures may 
go astray. A whole series of both Jewish and Christian com- 
mentators interpret these passages without the least hesita^ 
tion, as meaning that the clothes and shoes oi the Israelitish 
children grew with their growth, and remained for the whole 
of the forty years not in the least the wor^^e for wear.t Thus 
Justin says (Dial. c. Tryph c. 131) ' The strings of v/hose 
sandals never broke ; nor did the sandals themselves get old, 
nor their clothes wear out, but those of the children grew 
with their growth.' So Pfeiffer, * By a remarkable miracle, 
not only did the clothes of the Israelites in the desert never 
get old, but they grew with the growth of the Israelites 
themselves, so as to fit both men and boys in succession,' 
Pfeiffer also quotes a Kabbinical saying with approbation j 
'Go, and learn from the snail whose shell grows with its body.' 
Other Eabbins suppose the angels of God to have acted as 
tailors to the Israelites while they were in the desert, and 
interpret Ez. xvi. 10 — 13, as containing a literal allusion to 
the fact. Without going to such an absurd length as this, 
Augustine, Chrysostom, Theodoret, Grotius, and even 
■i Leeyling, abide by the literal explanation, that, through the 
blessing of God the clothes and shoes never wore out ; so 
that those who grew to manhood were able to hand them 



^ New Translation, p. 472. 

See Note in Cahexi; Deuteionome, p. 43. 



39i 



over as good as new to the rising generation, But thus as- 
suming a succession of wearers, these commentators at all 
events, escaped the fatal notion that the clothes and shoes 
grew with the bodies of the wearers. When first Peyrerius 
denied that the clothes and shoes of the Israelites were 
miraculousij preserved for forty years, and maintained that 

* the meaning of the Mosaic account was nothing more than 
this, that the Jews were never in want of anything, during 
the whole of the forty years that they were in the desert, 
but had so abundant a supply of everything, especially of 
wool from their flocks of cloth, of skins and of cloth, of skins 
and of leather, that they were r:over without materials from 
which to make their clothes/ Leeyling, who is usually so 
very temperate, protested most vehemently against such 

* petulantia et impietas,^ aSTevertheless the opinion expressed 
by Peyrerius became gradually the prevailing one. We find 
it advocated, for example, by Clericus, Buddeus, and Lilien- 
thal. The last of the three, however, thinks it necessary to 
point, not only to the flocks possessed by the Israelites from 
which they could obtain both wool and leather in great abun- 
dance, but also to the fact that every Israelite must certainly 
have brought some clothes and shoes with him out of Egypt 
— that they asked the Egyptians for clothes and obtained 
them (E. iii. 22. xii. 35) — that they would, no doubt, take 
ofi: the clothes of the Egyptians who were drowned in the 
Eed Sea, and afterwards washed on shore (E. xiv. 30), and 
lastly, that they took the booty of the conquered Amalekites, 
including, according to Josephus, a quantity of clothes. 
But surely the literal interpretation of the tests in ques- 
tion is the true one, and plainly implies a miracle of some 
kind, which prevented their clothes and shoes from wearing 
out, whatever may be the difficulty of conceiving what kind 
of miracle it could possibly have been.^'* 

Verse 9.— It is not true that Judea was a land wherein 
thou shalt eat bread without scarceness," as various famines 
are mentioned. See Euth,iJ, 2Samuel, xxi. 1,1 Kings, xviii. 2, 
2 Kings, vi, 25, 2 Kings, viii. 1, and 2 Kings, xxv. 3. 

Verse 15. — ^' Fiery serpents, and scorpions, and drought." 
The Douay has the serpent burning with his breath, aaid 



* Coltiiiso, part iii., p. 450, 



392 



ITS AUTHENTICITY AND CBEDIBILTTT. 



the scorpion and the dipsas," and explains that by dipsas it 
means a serpent whose bite caused violent thirst. 

Verse 19. — If thou do at all forget the Lord thy God, 
and walk after other Gods . . ye shall surely perish." 
The Jews were often as a nation and by thei/r Kings guilty 
of idolatrous practices, and yet have not pen-^^hed. 

Cbap. ix. 9. — Tbe statement that Moses fasted on the first 
visit to the Mount, is not contained in Exodus zxiv. 18 ; the 
number forty is like the number seven, a favourite and 
mystical number. The rain descended forty days and forty 
nights (Genesis vii. 4) ; Isaac and Esau married at forty 
(Gen. XXV. 20 : xxvi. 34) ; forty days were fulfilled for the 
dead Joseph (Gen. 1. 3) ; the spies searched the land forty 
days (Numbers xiii. 25) ; and the Israelites were therefore 
condemned to wander forty years (xiv. 33) ; Goliath chal- 
lenged the Israelites forty days ; David reigned forty years 
(2 Samuel, v, 4, &c.) Very numerous instances might be 
given of the recurrence of the word forty.'^ It can scarcely 
be taken as historic. This chapter is very broken and 
incoherent. Cahen thinks that several documents have been 
used in its composition. De Wette speaks of its obscurity. 

Chap. X., 1 to 5,—*' At tbat time the Lord said unto me, 
hew thee two tables of stone like unto the first, and come 
up unto me into the mount, and make thee an ark of wood* 
And I will write on the tables the words that were in the 
first tables which thou brakest, and thou shalt put them in 
the ark. And I made an ark of shittim wood, and hewed 
two tables of stone like unto the first, and went up into the 
mount, having the two tables in mine hand. And he wrote 
on the tables, according to the first writing, the ten com- 
mandments, which the Lord spake unto you in the mount 
out of the midst of the fire in the day of the assembly : and 
the Lord gave them unto me. And I turned myself and 
came down from the mount, and put the tables in the ark 
which I had made : and there they be, as the Lord com- 
manded me." Great contradiction exists between the nar- 
rative here and that in the Book of Exodus. In the words 
of Knobel, 'Hhe writer here treats the older records with 
great freedom." It will be observed that in E. xxxiv., 29^ 
the two stone tables with the ten commandments are in the 
hands of Moses, before any receptacle has been made in 



DEUTEBOKOMY : 



393 



^hich to place them. Here^ however, the ark is commanded 
to be made, v. 1, sind is actually made, v. 3, the same 
time with the second set of tables* before Moses goes up into 
the mount to receive them. But the account in Exodus 
makes this impossible. ISot only is there nothing said about 
the ark in E. xxxiv., 1, where he is commanded to make 
the tables ; bat it is only after coming down with the second 
set of tables that Moses, E. xxxv., 10 — 12, summons 
the 'wise hearted ' to come and make all that Jehovah hath 
commanded, the Tabernacle, and his tent, and his covering, 
&c., the Arh and the staves thereof, with the mercy seat, 
&c., and afterwards in E» xxxvii., 1 — 9, we have the full ac- 
count of Bezaleel making it. And yet the ark of the 
Deuteronomist was not, as might be suggested, a mere tem- 
porary Ark ; for he makes Moses say, 5, * I turned my- 
self, and came down from the mount, and put the tables into 
the ark which I had madey and there they be, as Jehovah 
commanded me."* Cab en says that to escape the difficulty^ 
some of the Eabbis have suggested that there were two arks. 

Verse 6. — And the children of Israel took their journey 
from Beeroth. of the children of Jaakan to Mosera.'* But 
according to Numbers, xxxiii., 31, it was just the reverse. 

Verse 6. — Mosera, There Aaron died, and there h© 
was buried." According to Numbers, xx., 28, Aaron died 
and was buried on Mount Hor. Colenso says — This pas- 
sage IS evidently quite out of its place, and as here intro- 
duced, it involves a complete contradiction. For the death 
of Aaron is here described as happening hefo/e the separa- 
tion of the LeviteSo" (See Numbers iii., 5, 6, and 9.) 

Verses 6 to 9. — These verses seemed to have been inserted 
without regard to the context ; they have no connection 
with the rest of the chapter, which would read more cohe- 
rently if read from v. 5 to v. 10, omitting the four interme- 
diate verses. Dr. Kennicot says that these verses belong 
to another chapter, t In v. 8, the words, unto this 
day,*' would denote a considerable lapse of time from th©-^ ^ -- 
death of Aaron. Cahen, after a very long note showing 
how the Samaritan version avoids part of the difficulty, 



* Colenso, part 3, p. 454. 

t Home's Introduction, vol. 1, p. 584. 



394 



ITS AUTHENTICITY AND CREDIBILITIT. 



eays that the original documents, of which the book is 
composed, have not been here put together with sujE- 
cient care. 

Verse 22. — " Three score and ten/' In Genesis xlvi. 265, 
this is Three score and six." In Acts vii. 14, Three 
score and fifteen."* 

Chap. xii. 6. — -Cahen points out that the direction here 
and in other verses to sacrifice in one fixed place, is opposed 
in Exodus xx. 24. 

Verse 15. — " Notwithstanding thou mayest kill and eat 
flesh in all thy gates, whatsoever thy soul lusteth after, 
according to the blessing of the Lord thy God which he hath 
given thee: the unclean and the clean may eat thereof, as 
of the roebuck, and as of the hart." This is a direct contra- 
diction of Leviticus xvii. 3 and 4 : What man soever there 
be of the house of Israel, that killeth an ox, or lamb, or goat, 
in the camp, or that killeth it out of the camp, and bringeth 
it not unto the door of the tabernacle of the congregation, 
to offer an offering unto the Lord before the tabernacle of 
the Lord ; blood shall be imputed unto that man ; he hath 
shed blood ; and that man shall be cut off from among his 
people." Home admitting the contradiction, tries to ex- 
plain it that the law in Deuteronomy ia in repeal of that in 
Leviticus. 

Verses 17 to 19. — " Thou mayest not eat within thy gates 
the tithe of thy corn, or of thy wine, or of thy oil, or the 
firstlings of thy herds or of thy flocks, nor any of thy vows 
which thou vowest, nor thy freewill offerings, orbeave ofi'er- 
ing of thy hand. But thou must eat them before Jehovah 
thy God, in the place which Jehovah thy God shall choose, 
thou, and thy son, and thy daughter, and thy manservant^ 
and thy maidservant, and the Levite that is within thy gates ; 
and thou shalt rejoice before Jehovah thy God in all that 
thou puttest thine hands unto. Take heed to thyself that 
thou forsake not the Levite as long as thou livest upon the 
earth." But the tithes above mentioned belonged w^oZ/y 
to the Levites according to the lav/ in N. xviii., 21, 24, 26, 
supposed to have been laid down only just before, in the 

* See Commentary on Genesis, p. 137, and Horne s Introduce 
tion, vol. 1, p. 584 



3)EUT£E0>:0MT c 



395 



Very same year in which this last address of Moses was 
delivered; and the jftr.9^Zm^s belonged wholly to the Priests, 
N. xviii. 15 — 18, And here the 27eop(e are to feast upon 
them, and not to ^* forsake " the Levite within their gates, 
but admit him to a share in their enjoyment ! The most 
complete contradiction obviously exists between the two sets 
of laws, supposed lo be uttered, the first directly by Jehovah 
Himsdf, the second by Moses^ within a few months of each 
other.^ 

Verse 23. — The blood is the life, and thou mayest not 
eat the life." The Douay has, " the blood is for the soul, 
and therefore thou must not eat the soul." Bellamy has, 

the blood is the soul, therefore thou shait not eat the 
soul." Cahen agrees with Bellamy and the Douay, and 
adds, " this passage is very explicit for those who wish to 
understand it." We have previously treated the question of 
tJJ33 NePeSh as soul " in the previous part of this Com= 
mentary on Gfenesis, Book 1, p. 42 and p. 76. The word 
which our orthodox translators render " life " here, they 
actually render soul in the next chapter, v. 6. In the 
Hebrew, v. 32 of cap. xii., is v. 1 of cap. xiii. 

Chap. xiii. 1 to 5. — Here Moses says, " if a prophet" of a 
different faith arise, and his sign or wonder come to pass, 

that prophet shall be put to death." Can we, therefore, 
wonder that the Jews put Jesus to death, the more espe- 
cially as according to the Bible he endeavoured to introduce 
a new form of worship, and new doctrines amongst them ? 
The word ^^^13 N^BIA, prophet, is used here as if the mean- 
ing were well known ; it occurs once previously (Genesis, 
XX. 7), but does not seem to have been in general use until 
much later in the Jewish history. 

Verses 6 to 10. — '* If thy brother, the son of thy mother, 
or thy son, or thy daughter, or the wife of thy bosom, or 
thy friend, which is as thine owti soul, entice thee secretly, 
saying, let us go and serve other gods, which thou hast not 
known, thou, nor thy fathers ; namely, of the gods of the 
people which are round about you, nigh unto thee, or far off 
from thee, from th? one end of the earth even unto the other 
end of the earth ; thou shalt not consent unto him, nor 



Colenso. pa?t 3, p. 475. 



396 ITS AtJTHENTICITY AND CREDIBILITY. 

hearken unto him ; neither shall thine eye pity him, neither 
ehalt thou spare, neither shalt thou conceal him : but thou 
shalt surely kill him ; thine hand shall be first upon him to 
put him to death, and afterwards the hand of all the people. 
And thou shalt stone him with stones, that he die ; because 
he hath sought to thrust thee away from the Lord thy God, 
which brought thee out of the land of Egypt, from the house 
of bondage." Cahen points out how this would leave an 
opportunity for personal vengeance ; any person might make 
a false accusation of this kind. The command is evidence 
of how poor a conception of a loving God existed in the mind 
of the writer. In the Old Testament the persecuting spirit 
kills the heterodox, in the New it preserves him for eternal 
torment. 

Verses 12 to 16. — ^*If thou shalt hear say in one of thy 
cities, which the Lord thy God hath given thee to dwell 
there, saying, certain men, the children of Belial, are gone 
out from among you, and have withdrawn the inhabitants of 
their city, saying, let us go and serve other gods, which ye 
have not known : then shalt thou enquire, and make search, 
and ask diligently; and, behold, if it be truth, and the 
thing certain, that such abomination is wrought among you ; 
thou shalt surely smite the inhabitants of that city with the 
edge of the sword, destroying it utterly, and all that is 
therein, and the cattle thereof, with the edge of the sword. 
And thou shalt gather all the spoil of it into the midst of 
the street thereof, and shalt burn with fire the city, and all 
the spoil thereof every whit, for the Lord thy God : and it 
shall be an heap for ever ; it shall not be built again," Colenso 
says* that this law it is plain could never have been carried 
out in legal form. How were they to put a city on its trial 
for the offence in question, so as to give it an opportunity of 
clearing itself of the charge? And was every city to be des- 
troyed and utterly exterminated in this way, where perhaps 
an unruly mob, the majority, might have become for a time 
too strong for the better souls among them— and were 
these, too, to be involved in the general ruin ? The text 
gives no countenance to any abatement of the severe rigour 
of the law. 



* Colenso, part 8, p. 478. 



BEUTEEONOMT : 



Chap. xiv. 5. — " The fallow deer." The Douay has " the 
buflOie.*' Cahen, who says that the signification of most of 
the names is doubtful, does not translate this word at all, 
but simply puts in our alphabet the Hebrew word "^IQrT^ 
IChMOE, as to which translators differ.* Some of the 
names here, and in the Douay, are transposed, and the trans- 
lations in Bellamy and Cahen vary. The Pygarg ia 
aimply the anglicising the Q-reek letters of the Septuagint, 
Our margin gives the word " bison as a translation, but as 
some of the Greek lexicons translate " pygargos as " weak, 
impotent, timid,'* the marginal guess seems very far from 
the Septuagint view. 

Verse 7. — There is here a repetition of the same error as 
that contained in Leviticus, xi. 5 and 6^ as to the hare 
chewing the cud.f 

Verse 12. — ^' The ossifrage/' in the Douay is " the 
grype." 

Verse 13.—" The glede," Douay, ringtail/' 

Verse 15. — x\nd the owl, and the night hawk, and the 

cuckow." The Douay has the ostrich, the owl, and the 

larus." 

Verse 16.—^' The little owl, and the great owl, and the 
swan." The Douay, ^'the heron, the swan, and the stork." 
In fact, in nearly every verse the birds are differently named 
in the two versions. 

Verse 19, — And every creeping thing that flieth is un- 
clean unto you ; they shall not be eaten." This is contra- 
dicted in Leviticus, xi, 21 to 23, where certain creeping 
things are permitted. 

Verse 21.—^' Ye shall not eat of anything that dieth of 
itself: thou shalt give it unto the stranger that is in thy 
gates, that he may eat it i or thou mayest sell it unto an 
alien." Bellamy says that this appears to be inconsistent 
with every principle of goodness and just dealing, as it is 
stated in the common version. The animal dies, and it is 
to be given or sold to one unaware of the fact. Such a 

^ See Parkhurst, p. 221, Breslati 235, Newman 186, Gesenius 
346, Buxtorf 141^ Eichorn's Simonis 579. 

t See Commentary on Leviticus, p. 315, and Colenso, part 3, 
p. 481. 



398 



"det;tero>-omt : 



proceeding," says Bellamy,* would be reprobated in every 
civilised nation." Be! la my contends that the true transla- 
tion is exactly the reverse of that given in our version. What 
a glorious revelation, \\here such questions can arise as to the 
true meaning of the Hebrew text. 

Chap. XIV. 22 to 27.— Thou shalt truly tithe all the in- \ 
crease of thy seed, that the field bringeth forth year by year. ' 
And thou shalt eat before the Lord thy Grod, in the place 
which he shall choose to place his name there, the tithe of 
thy corn, of thy wine, and of thine oil, and the firstlings of 
thy herds and of thy flocks ; that thou mayest learn to fear 
the Lord thy God always. And if the way be too long for 
thee, so that thou art not able to carry it ; or if the place be 
too far from thee, which the Lord thy God shall choose to * 
set his name there, when the Lord thy God hath blessed 
thee : then shalt thou turn it into money, and bind up the 
money in thine hand, and shalt go unto the place which the 
Lord thy God shall choose ; and thou shalt bestow that 
money for whatsoever thy soul lusteth after, for oxen, or for 
sheep, or for roine, or for strong f drink, or for whatsoever 
thy soul desireth and thou shalt eat there before the Lord 
thy God, and thou shalt rejoice, thou, and thine household, 
and the Levite that is within thy gates ; thou shalt not for- 
sake him ; for he hath no part nor inheritance with thee." 
Bellamy objects to the translation, urging that, if accurate, 
its effect would be to give an enormously large share in 
Etheridge's translation, to the Levite. In verses 23 and 24, 
theTargum of Onkelos reads Shekinah in lieu of*' name," and 
80 wherever the word thus occurs in this book. Colenso says : 

In this passage, the permission is given that, if the way 
was too long, the whole of the tithes and firstlings might be 
turned into money ; and the person must go up with this 
money in his hand, ^to the place which Jehovah shall choose,' 
and there buy with the money * what his soul lusteth after, 
oxen, sheep, wine, strong drink, whatsoever his soul de- 
sireth ; ' and the good things thus provided were to be 'eaten - 



* Bellamy, p. 484. 

t We commend the words we have italicized to the notice of 
our teetotal friends. See also Psalm' civ. 15 ; Judges ix. 13 ; Prp- 
yerbs xxxi. G, 7 j Isaiah xxv. 6. 



ITS AUTHENTICITr AISTD CREDIBILITY. 



399 



before Jehovah ' by the man and his household, and * the 
Levite that is within thy gates— thou shalt not forsake him.' 
But no such provision is made for the conversion of the 
firstlings into money, in Numbers xviii. 17, a law supposed 
to be given by Jehovah himself only a few months previously, 
which says : — The firstling of a cow, or the firstling of a 
sheep, or the firstling of a goat, thou shalt not redeem ; they 
are holy ; thou shalt sprinkle their blood upon the altar, and 
shalt burn their fat for an offering made by fire^ for a sweet 
savour unto Jehovah,' And, as before observed, all the 
meat of the firstlings was expressly given to the priests by 
the law, in Numbers xviii. 18, where we read, ' And the flesh 
of them shall be thine, as the wave-breast, and as the right 
shoulder are thine.' So, too, the tithes were expressly to be 
consumed by the Levites, except a tenth of them, which 
they were to give to the priests by the law in Numbers xviii. 
25 — 32, where it is said, verse 31, * Ye (the Levites) shall 
eat it in every place, ye and your households ; for it is your 
reward for your service in the tabernacle of the congrega- 
tion.' Here, however, in Deuteronomy xiv. 22-— 27, it ia 
ordered, in direct contradiction to the above lav/s, issued, 
according to the stoYj^from the mouth of Jehovah himself. 
Numbers xviii. 8, 20, 25, a few months previously, that the 
man who offers, and his family, and ' the Levite that is 
within his gates,' shall make a feast upon the produce of 
both the priests' firstlings and the Levites' tithes, at Jeru- 
salem, xii. 6, 17—19, xiv. 22—27, xv. 19—23, whereas the 
Levites were to have eaten them at their homes ' in every 
place.' " * 

Chap. XV. 4 contradicts verse 11.— The former, although 
softened down by our translators, stating that there shall be 
a time when there shall be no poor amongst you ; '' while 
the latter declares that the poor shall never cease out of 
the land." 

Verses 12 to 17. — See Exodus xxi. ; there are several dif- 
ferences between the two laws. Here the servant is not to 
be sent away empty ; in Exodus the contrary is implied. 
Here the same law applies to man-servant and maid-servant ; 
not so, however, in Exodus, There the servant, whose ears 



Coie^i^sO; part iii. p. 482 ] but see Home, vol, iii. p. 288. 



400 



DETJTEEONOMT : 



are to be bored, is to be brought before the judges ; here 
nothing is said as to any judicial formula, and the reason— 
i.e.y the leaving in captivity the wife and children— i^ 
omitted.* 

It is clear from Jeremiah xxxiv. 8—17, that the Jews 
themselves paid no attention to this law until about the time \ 
of Jeremiah, when it was temporarily observed, and soon 
again neglected. A grave question arises whether, until the 
supposed finding the book of the law in the days of Josiah, 
the Jews knew anything whatever of these commands.f 

Chap. xvi. 1. — The month Abib appears to have been the 
only month named in the early books, the others go by 
numerals, l^lt^ ABIB, or, as the Douay calls it, the 
month of new corn, corresponds in great part to April, as 
the month, says Cahen, in which the corn commenced to 
ripen in Palestine, and is afterwards called \D^2 NISeN. 
The names J of months held by the Jews are, like those of 
the angels, all of Chaldean origin. 

The following is the table of the Jewish months, as ob- 
served after the Babylonian captivity : — 

1. — ^D^^i NISeN or Abib, corresponding to March and 
* April, and commenced the religious year it had thirty days. 

2. —V^ ZITJ or "l'^*'^ AIIE, corresponding to April and 
May, had twenty-nine days. 

3. — |VD SIUN, corresponding to May and June, had 
thirty days. 

4. — Th^MTJZ, corresponds to June and July, had 
twenty-nine days. 

5. — AB, corresponds to July and August, had thirty 
days. , 

6. — 717^5 ALTJL, corresponds to August and September, 
had twenty-nine days* 

7. — '^'^S?flTheShEI,correspondsto l^eptember and October 
and commenced the civil year, had thirty days. 

8— Sll BUL, also called ]lt»ma M^ECAeShUN, cor- | 
responds to October and November, had twenty-nine days. 

* See " The Bible : What it is/' Commentary on Exodus, pp, 
250-62, and ColensO; part iii. p. 497. 
i" See Colenso, part iii. p. 499. 
X See Cahen, Deuteronome^ p. 72, and Home, vol, 3- 



ITS AUTHENTICITY AND CREDIBILITY. 



401 



9. — *|^DD KeSLTJ, eorresponds to November and Deceip- 
ber, had thirty days. 

10. — jnitO T^BeTh^ corresponds to December and January, 
had twenty-nine days. 

11. — ^itD ShgBeT, corresponds to January and February, 
bad thirty days. 

12. — S*T^ AD^E corresponds to February and Marcb^had 
twenty-nine days. ' 

These months being nearly lunar months, in order that they 
might always fall about the same season, the Jews added 
every second or third year, an intercalary month called 
JJAi)eR or second ADeS. 

" It appears," says Dr. Inman, the ancient Greek year, 
like the Jewish^ commenced at the autumnal equinox. The 
division of the year into months, does not appear to have 
been general among the Hebrews for some considerable time 
after the Grecian captivity, and having adopted the ancient 
Greek calendar, they never materially improved upon it, until 
their second expulsion from Jerusalem. This drove them 
once again amongst people more intelligent and less obstinate 
than themselves, and who, as it were, compelled them to 
adopt new ideas.'** 

Verses 16 & 17. — As the Israelites are forbidden to present 
themselves empty-handed, whatever else the Pentateuch may 
fail in, it is clear that it makes admirable provision for the 
priest. The sacrificial regulations are not peculiar to Hebrew 
worship, " Some regarded the offerings," says Kalisch^t 
simply as presents given to the gods in order to secure their 
good graces : just as in many primitive politics, subjects are 
not allowed to approach their king without a gift, that they 
may constantly be reminded that all their possessions pro- 
perly belong to him. It was an old aphorism, * Presents 
win gods as well as kings.' The ancient Hebrews were not ' 
strangers to a similar notion ; they were commanded * not 
to appear before God empty the Hebrew names i'ov sacrifice 
in general mean properly gijft or present ; and writers in the 
latest periods warned the people not to offer faulty or value- 
less animals, such as, if presented to a prince or a governor, 

* Ancient Faiths, vol. 2, p. 860, 
t Leviticus 4. 

- J 



402 DEUTEWOIK^OMr : 



f 



would fail to secure his gracious reception ; though of course 
enlightened men proclaimed that God, the Lord of the Uni- 
verse, does not require man's poor offerings. Hence arose 
the idea that the richer the gift, the greater the favour which 
it secured. 

*^The Athenians could never understand why the gods so 
often allowed them to be defeated by the Lacedsemonians, 
since they always offered the fairest and most numerous^ their 
enemies scanty and paltry sacrifices. In every invocation 
to the gods, an allusion to generous offerings previously 
presented, was deemed most efficacious, and to determine 
the final issue. Eoman authors attributed the security 
and growth of the empire to the scrupulous observance of 
sacrificial and other rites ; while, on the other hand, it is 
reported that the Thoes, a tribe at the confines of Thrace, 
who entirely neglected sacrifices, vanished utterly from the 
earth, with their towns and property. It was made a matter 
of calculation or barter, how much was required to attain a 
certain end, for the gods do nothing gratuitously, they sell 
their goods to men ; health might be purchased by a calf, 
wealth by four oxen ; a royal crown cost a hecatomb ; while 
more trifling bounties might be acquired by a cock, a wreath 
of flowers, or even a handful of frankincense. On ordinary 
occasions, and when no great boon was demanded, no efforts 
were made to offer valuable gifts. The Greeks often appro- 
priated to the gods insignificant, if not absolutely worthless 
parts of the victims ; they were therefore taunted and ridi- 
culed by the comic poets for the folly and selfishness which 
expected benefits for nothing. But when important objects 
were to be gained, or great events to be signalised, the 
number of sacrifices was deemed most essential. It be- 
came a matter of ambition and self-interest to slaughter 
hecatombs. Marius vowed one in the Oimbric war, ^milius 
Paulus in the Macedonian. After the discomfiture at 
Lake Thrasymene, three hundred bulls were sacrificed to 
Jupiter ; white cattle to many other gods of the first rank ; 
and to the rest, victims of less value. On one occasion the 
Syracusans offered 450 oxen to Jupiter. The Athenians 
killed annually, in commemoration of the battle of Marathon^ 
500 goats in honour of Artemis Agrotera. Olympias, the 
mother of Alexander the Great^ offered a thousand animals 



ITS AUTHEXTICITY AND CREDIBILITr, 403 

of every domestic kind. At the death of Tiberius and the 
accession of Caligula, it is computed that about 160,000 
victims, principally oxen and calves, were slaughtered in 
Eome. In fact, the opulent, however wicked, believed that 
they possessed the power of obtaining from the gods whatever 
they desired, and of thus triumphing over the poor or the 
thrifty. From this conception there is but one step to the 
idea that the gods can be forced into compliance with the 
petitions of the worshippers, and this idea frequently occurs 
in the Hindoo mythology of later periods. The Hebrews 
also occasionally carried the number of sacrifices to an excess. 
It is reported that David, when conveying the ark of the 
covenant from the house of Obed-Edom to Jerusalem, killed 
an ox and a fatling after every sixth step ; that Solomon, 
when his succession was secured, ofi'ered 1,000 animals; 
when he was anointed, LOOO bullocks, 1,000 rams, and 1,000 
lambs ; and when he consecrated the temple, 22,000 oxen 
and 120,000 sheep. It is indeed more than probable that 
most of these numbers are largely exaggerated, as, in fact, 
Solomon is finally related to have killed animals ^ that could 
not be told nor numbered for multitude,' But they prove 
at least that the Hebrew historians not only regarded them 
as possible, but wished them to be considered as historical, 
for the greater gratification of their heroes and of the events 
which they recorded. In other cases, the sacrifices were 
conceived as real/oocZ presented to the gods, who were sup- 
posed actually to consume the ofi'ering, either by eating it 
bodily or by inhaling the smoke when burnt. ^ The gods,* 
says Lucian, ' feed on ambrosia and nectar ; but they delight 
most in the steam of the fat that rises with the smoke of the 
sacrifices, and in the blood of the victims poured by the 
ofi'erer round the altar,' This notion has by many anti- 
quarians been considered the first origin of sacrifices. The 
lectisternia of various ancient nations require but a passing > 
allusion. They generally consisted of tables covered with 
the most delicious viands, and of sumptuous couches on . 
which the images of the gods were placed reposing, as if 
actually partaking of the dainties. They were customary 
among the Persians. They occur in the apocryphal narra- 
tive of Bel and the Dragon in Babylon. They have been 
noticed among some Tartar tribes. They were familiar to 



404 



the Greeks and Eomans. In Homer, Neptune is described 
as ^ sitting down to sacrificial meal and enjoying it/ The 
gods were even considered to eat the flesh of human sacri- 
fices ; and Dionysos bore distinctive names descriptive of 
that attribute. The early Eomans offered to Jupiter Dapalis 
a piece of roaM pork with wine. We have a detailed des-. 
cription of the first grand lectisternia prepared at Rome, 
in honour of Apollo, Mercury, jSTeptune, Latona, Diana, 
and Hercules. On the capitol, the Komans gave annually 
to Jupiter a banquet or epulum, to which Juno and Minerva 
were invited, and at which the gods reclined on a couch, 
while the goddesses, in accordance with Eoman views of 
propriety, sat in chairs. Some ordinances and expressions- 
of the Old Testament compel us to suppose that similar 
notions were, in early times, entertained by the Hebrews, 
also. The shew-bread table, with the constant and regularly 
renewed loaves, the type of the ordinary and daily suste- 
nance in the East, points unmistakeably to the cereal food 
primitively placed before the Deity, though, of course, in 
the Pentateuch, that origin is effaced as much as was at alt 
possible. Animal sacrifices were to be accompanied by 
vegetable and drink-offerings, and all oblations whatever 
were to be presented with salt ; evidently because human 
repasts consist not of meat alone, but of bread and wine, 
and salt is indispensable in the preparation of food. The 
term, * an offering made by fire to the Lord,' used in reference 
to every class of sacrifice, is in some pas!=!ages explained by 
the phrase, * food of the offering made by the fire to the 
Lord,' or ' food of the offering made by fire for a sweet 
odour ; ' and the offering itself is repeatedly called food of 
God. These phrases undeniably betray the rude conceptions 
held by the people in its earliest stages, and, even while in 
exile at Babylon, the Jews, imitating the custom of the land, 
* prepared tables to God, and filled the goblet to Meni.' But 
it is equally indisputable that the terms in question vvere 
gradually understood in a more spiritual or refined sense, 
and that they were so taken in the Pentateuch. Por it is * 
evident that the expression, an offering 'for sweet odour/ 
must have originated when the chief sacrifices consisted of 
incense and other fragrant substances ; yet in the Pentateuch 
it is retained for the most offensive smell of burnt meat aud 



ITS AUTr NTICITY ATO CEEDIBILITY, 



405 



fat, hides, feathers, and flour ; while^ on the other hand, it 
is never employed with reference to the burning of frank- 
incense. It took, indeed, such deep root in the language 
that even Josephus spoke of sacrifices as the * daily food ' of 
God ; and the apostle Paul described the voluntary gifts 
sent to him by the congregations as ' an odour of sweet 
emell, a sacrifice acceptable, well pleasing to God,' " 

Verse 18. — Judges and officers shalt thou make thee in 
all thy gates." 

So far from there having been a code of written law," 
says Dr. Inman,* <^ we notice that David himself adminis- 
tered judgment in person, for we find Absolom saying, when 
any man that had a controversy came to the king for judg- 
ment, * See thy matters are good and right, but there is no 
man deputed of the king to hear thee : oh, that I were made 
a judge in the land, that every man which hath any suit or 
cause, might come unto me, and I would do him justice.' 
(2 Sam. XV. 2—4, see also 2 Sam. viii. 15). it is perfectly 
clear that David could never have known the law as laid 
down in Deut. xvi. 18, ^ Judges and officers shalt thou make 
thee in all thy gates nor the command in Deut. xvii. 18, 
which enjoins upon the king the necessity of making a copy 
of the law, and to read therein all the days of his life. Nor 
could he have known that of Deut. xix. 17, where it is laid 
down that the proper tribunal for controversy is one com- 
posed of the priests and judges ; nor that of Deut. xxi. 5, 
where it is enjoined that it is to be by * the priests, the sons 
of Levi,' that every controversy shall be tried ; nor that of 
Deut XXV. 2, where a judge, and not a king, is spoken ol 
It is doubtful indeed if Levites existed in the days of David, 
Throughout the whole of the career of the first king of 
Jerusalem, whose piety has almost passed into a bye-word, 
we find no reference to Abraham, nor to any of his imme- 
diate successors ; there was no attention paid to Sabbath or 
Passover, nor to the assembling of all the males three times 
in a year before the Lord (Exod. xxiii. 17). We hear nothing 
of the feast of Pentecost, of the feast of Trumpets, of the 
great day of Atonement^ nor the feast of Tabernacles. There 
is, however, a reference made to them in 2 Chroa. viii. 13^ 



* Ancient Faiths, vol. 2, 40, 



406 - BEUTEEONOMY S 

which is manifestly a modem fiction , written at a very late date^ 
Again, we find that this monarch, whose anxiety to keep the 
law of the Lord, is conspicuous through those psalms which 
are traced to his pen, seems to have been utterly ignorant 
of the law enunciated in Deut. vii. 3, and Josh, xxiii. 12, 13, 
in which marriage with strangers, the remnant of the ancient 
inhabitants, is strictly forbidden, for he made no scruple in 
marrying a daughter of Salmai, King of G-eshur, from whom, 
indeed, sprang his rebellious son Absolom. Of the country 
of Haggith, Eglah, and Abital, we are not informed. Equally 
ignorant with the father was the son, since Solomon did not 
fear to marry women from Egypt, Moab, Ammon, Edom, 
Zidon, and elsewhere. (1 Kings xi. 1)." 

Verse 21.—" Thou shalt not plant thee a grove of any 
trees near unto the altar of the Lord." The word translated 
Grove " is mtU« ASh^KE, and this Kalisch says,* Is 
the image of the Astarte or Venus, worshipped by the 
Phoenicians and Arammns, not ^ groves,' which significa- 
tion is perfectly unsupported.'* So far as we are aware, the 
word occurs before in Exodus xxxiv, 13, Deut. vii. 5, and 
xii. 3. Cahen says, **Selden explains the Hebrew word 
Asherun, by the images representing Astarte."t Gesenius^ 
who regards the proper and primary signification of the 
word ASh^EE as afterwards neglected and obliterated, 
speaks of it as used to denote the companion and consort of 
Baal and ker image, and perhaps, generally, images of idols^ 
at least those of a particular kind.J 

The kind of images referred to, is made very clear by Dr* 
Inman, and will need but little explanation to those familiar 
with the works of Dulaure.§ 

Dr. Inman, II says Asherah is "Translated grove in the 
English Bible. There is some difficulty about the meaning 
of this word, inasmuch as it is associated with * image 
pillars.' These being emblems of the male organ, would 
lead to the belief that the Deity was masculine ; but the H 
at the end of the word indicates a feminine idea, and sug- 



* Exodus, p. 688. t Deuteronome, p. 39. 

J Lexicon, p. 90, and p. 661 ; see also Parkhurst, p. 47. 
§ Des Diviiiites Generatrices, p. 194, and p. 88. 
il Ancient Faiths, vol. 1, p. 307. 



ITS AUTHENTIGITY AS^D TREDIBILITr. 



40T 



gests that Asherah — i.e., the female organ, was the counter- 
part of Asher ; if so, the emblems would be offerings to the 
goddess. That they were so, we may judge by the inscrip- 
tion which Lucian records as existent on the two enormous 
phalli in the vestibule of the temple of the Syrian goddess 
— i.e., that they were erected by Bacchus to his mother Juno, 
Amongst the Phoenicians, Asherah was a goddess. We may 
fairly conclude, then, that the word in question typified iUe 
female creator under her mundane form. Asherah and 
Ashtoreth are equivalent to each other. The idea embodied 
in our word grove has nothing to do with a clump of tveeB, 
for we find (1 Kings xiv. 23) that groves were erected 'under 
every green tree/ and that they were objects of worship 
(Judges iii. 7). When worshipped, they were associated 
with Baalim, as husband and wife. It has been abundantly 
proved, that the image of Baal, or Asshur, was characteristic 
of his sex; we presume, then, that the emblem of Asherah 
would be equally so. That it was so in many instances, the 
learned author of ' The Eemains of the Worship of Priapus 
in the Middle Ages ' has demonstrated, for he- has figured 
four stone images of women (which existed till within very 
recently over the porches of certain churches in Ireland, 
and may still be seen in museums), in which the * Asherah ^ 
is exposed in so flagrant a manner, that we cannot exhibit it 
pictorial] y. The same author depicts other images which 
have existed, or which may still be seen in ecclesiastical 
buildings elsewhere, wherein attention is drawn by a female 
to that part which characterises her sex. The same writer 
remarks that, amongst the Irish, the figures in question were 
considered as charms to bring good fortune ; and we have 
already mentioned that the feminine emblem for a very long 
period, and over a vast extent of country, has been con- 
sidered as a talisman to bring good luck. Now, amongst 
the Phoenicians, Asherah, or ' the grove/ was the goddess of 
good fortune, and w^e thus obtain evidence confirmatory of 
our views. But it is probable that the naked truth was 
generally veiled under certain emblems^ and it behoves us 
to ascertain what these were. The most simple form which 
was adopted was the closed, or sli^jhtly opened mouth, placed 
uprio:ht]y.'' 

Dr. Inman refers to an Egyptian seal given by Layard in 



408 



DEUTJSRONOMY : 



his Nineveh and Babylon," p. 156, where Harpocrates^ 
seated on the mystic lotus, is depicted adoring the Yoni. 

Kalisch says Asherah^ or Ashtaroth, the Phoenician 
Goddess Ashtarte^ was in almost every respect the counter- 
part of Baal, with whom she was generally worshipped in 
conjunction, and hence bore also the appellation Beeltis^ the 
supreme female divinity in the Assyrian Pantheon, * the 
mother of the gods,' or * the great goddess,' or ^ queen of the 
lands,' sometimes called the wife of Asshur, but more safely 
to be taken as the wife of Bel-Nimrud, the second member 
of the governing triad of Assyrian gods ; for she was the 
goddess of the moon, and appears in inscriptions under the 
name Tanais^ or the Persian Artemis, and as the goddess 
of war and the chase. She was therefore called ^ the queen 
of heaven,' or Urania, and represented either with a woman's 
head, or the head of a bull, the emblem of royalty, and with 
horns, generally three, in the form of the crescent, and later 
a star between them ; for she was Venus as planet, or in 
the Babylonian mythology Ishtar^ * queen of the land,' the 
* queen of all the gods,' ' the beginning or mistress of heaven 
and earth,' and especially * goddess of war, battle, and of the 
chase,' the ^ queen of victory,' the * fortunate or happy ;' she 
was the passive or female principle of conception and birth, 
or the element of water, and therefore the goddess of fruit- 
fulness t^nm^^Mylitta, and worshipped, especially by women, 
with cakes, libations, and incense. So universal was her ser- 
vice that her name was employed to express foreign deities in 
general ; it flourished in Judah, especially under Manasseh, 
in Israel, under Ahab, and it was coupled with rites involv- 
ing the grossest and most sensual forms of natural religion, 
and probably representing the remains of even ruder notions 
and more revolting practices. Hence in the Assyrian 
period, the Hebrews adopted easily the trans-Euphratic 
service of the ^ tents of the maidens,' kindred to that of 
Ashtarte, because also requiring the chastity of virgins as 
an ofiering to the Deity.'* 

Verse 22. — Neither shalt thou set thee up any image ; 
which the Lord they God hateth." The word translated 
** image " is in the margin, and by Bellamy, called " pillar '^ 



^ Leviticus, p. 358. 



ITS AITTHiyTTCTTY AT^ CEEDIBILITT. 400 

OT ^^ statue/* Cahen makes it " stele," In Q-enesis xxviii. 
18 and 22, the same word is written " pillar/* Some Jewish 
commentators point out that Jacob's action was apparently 
agreeable to G-od, although directly against this command- 
ment. The *^ hate " here spoken of, manifested itself in 
*Move" for Jacob. 

Chap. xvii. 2 to 7.= — These manifest the existence of 
Tsabaistic forms of worship, and read with chap. xiii. 6 to 10, 
show the stringent courses resorted to, to sustain the Hebrew 
theocracy. 

Verse 5. — There are several words of this verse wanting 
in the Septuagint version. The Douay apparently follows 
the Septuagint here. 

Verse 9. — " Thou shalt come unto the priests the Levites.'' 
Kalisch points out that while by the Book of Numbers the 
Levites were kept clear and distinct from the priests who 
were the descendants of Aaron only, yet throughout the 
Book of Deuteronomy the writer speaks as if the priests and 
Levites were identical, that is, as if the priests were the 
whole tribe of Levi, and observes further that in Deutero- 
nomy the Levites are represented as performing offices "from 
which they were in the other books rigidly debarred, and 
which were reserved for the priests exclusively.'^^ 

Verse 14. — " A king.'* Septuagint has '^a chief." Cahen 
says, Doubts have been raised as to the authenticity of this 
command."t The opinion of many critics is that it is an in- 
terpolation after the era of Solomon, and it is certainly con- 
trarv to the general tenor of the Pentateuchal constitution. 

Verse 14 to end of chapter. — CahenJ remarks that doubts 
have been thrown upon these verses as being out of harmony 
with the general theocratic spirit of the Pentateuch, and in- 
consistent with the conduct and language of Samuel when 
the people demanded a king. The law§ against the increase 
of wives is regarded as posterior to the excesses of Solomon 
and Rehoboam« 

Chap, xviii, 1.—^^ The priests the Levites, and all the tribe 



* Kalisch, Leviticus, pp. 584 to 599. ^ 

t Cahen, Deuteronome, p. 79. See Colenso,. part 3, p. 509. 

X Deuteronome, p. 78. 

§ jBut see flombeck contra Judseos. lib. 7, cap. 6, p. 518. 



410, 



DBUTEHOFOMT : 



of Levi, shall have no part nor Inheritance with Israel : thej • 
shall eat the offerings of the Lord raade by fire, and his in- 
heritance." Kalisch* makes this The priests the Levites, 
the whole tribe of Levi," and urges that this part of the text 
is in direct contradiction to the book of Leviticus, where the 
portions of the sacrifices were strictly limited to the children 
of Aaron. Colenso points out how the translators, by adding 
the word " and " before " all the tribe/* have modified greatly 
the meaning of the original. 

On verses 6 to 8, Colenso comes to the conclusion that at 
the time this was written, the Levites as a body were not 
very desirous of being employed at the sanctuary, and thinks 
this corresponds to the state existing at the close of Manas- 
seh's, or beginning of Josiah's reign. 

Verse 8. — " They shall have like portions to eat, besides 
thai which cometh of the sale of his patrimony!^ What 
patrimony t did this mean? In Numbers xviii. 20, it is 
apparently distinctly put that Aaron and the Levites are to 
have no part or inheritance in the land. Cahen says that 
the passage italicised is difficult, and has the appearance of 
a marginal gloss which has slipped into the text. 

Verses 10 and 11. — There shall not be found among you 
anyone that maketh his son or his daughter to pass through 
the fire, or that useth divination, or an observer of times, or 
an enchanter, or a witch, or a charmer, or a consul ter with 
familiar spirits, or a wizard, or a necromancer." Verse 10, 
"or an enchanter," Cahen renders as one consulting ser- 
pents. The Douay, as one that *^observeth dreams or omens." 
Bellamy says that " an observer of times," " is neither a 
translation nor even a true comment on the original," and 
puts it revealing discovers by a cloud." Verse 11, " a con- 
suiter with familiar spirits or a wizard," Cahen translates 
**one interrogating Ob or Idoni."J Bellamy renders it 
" consulteth a basilisk," and says "This word HIK AUB 
was the Egyptian name for the basilisk. It was a saying 
amongst the ancients, ^ In the most virulent poison is con- 

* Leviticus, pp. 209, 599; and see Colenso, part 3, cap. 11. 
t See note to Etheridg-e's Translation of the Targums, p. 515- 
\ See on this Bryant, Ancient Mythology, vol. i. p. 473, and 
E,ev. J, B Deane Serpent Worship, 



ITS AUTHENTICITY AND CREDIBILITr, 411 

tained the greatest medicine/ and as the basilisk was sup- 
posed to be the most poisonous of all the serpent genus, 
which creature was reverenced by all the Eastern nations at 
that period, they concluded also that by it they might obtain 
the greatest knowledge concerning hidden things." 

Verse 14. — " Hearkened unto observers of times." Bel- 
lamy has " will report by clouds/' and in a note says : " I 
am here led to take some notice of the ancient mysteries of 
the Greeks, called the Eleusinian Mysteries^ or the mys- 
teries of Eli-Sini^ my God of Sini, The Eleusinian Mys- 
teries were mysteries, or sacred rites, appertaining to the 
worship of God, were divided into two parts — viz., the greater 
and the lesser mysteries. The lesser mysteries were open 
to all, but the great mysteries were only known to those, 
a small number of the initiated, who had the privilege of 
communicating a knowledge of future things. This is the 
same as is said by Eusebius. The unlearned were confined 
to the literal observation of the laws of Moses ; but the learned 
were admitted to the contemplation of a more refined philo- 
sophy, who explained the figurative sense." We also learn 
from Herodotus, Diodorus Siculus, and the Christian fathers, 
that the Asiatic Colonists who peopled Greece, brought with 
them their religious doctrines and professions. Greece 
appears to have been peopled from Egypt and Babylon ; for 
Herodotus says^ that most of the Gods came from the 
Egyptian colonies of Cecrops, Inachus, and Danaus, and 
some also from the Pelasgians. The same historian also says 
that the Grecian Bacchus was from Egypt, was called 
Dionysos, by Melampus — Herod, lib. ii. c. 47, which is 
Diofiisius; who was Moses. See Exod. xvii. 15, yekovah 
Nissi^ which without the Latin termination is Dio-nissi. 
Hence it does appear that when the Hebrews on their con- 
quest of the land of Canaan, had established the worship of 
God, and when the certainty of divine communication at 
Mount Sinai had reached Greece, the Greeks adopted the 
theology of the Hebrews, and called their mysteries the 
mysteries of Eli-Sini or of my God of Sini, Which after- 
wards were called Eleu-Sini — his God of Si?ii, or the mys- 
trries of the God of Sini, And hence the term Eleusiniau 
J^lysteries^ or the mysteries celebrated in the rites and cere- 
monies by the ancient true worshippers of God from Adam 



412 



DEUTERONOMY : 



to Moses. This appears to have given the name to the city 
Eleusis, where these mysteries were celebrated; like the 
words Exx£Xe» In Extoi/y which are only the Hebrew pf*» lSSn 
Hallehijah^ praise ye yehovah^ and p*'?^^ fnost high, in 

Greek letters. In my ^ History of ail Eeligions/ I have 
shown that the ancient Bacchus was born in Egypt, and that 
he was Moses. Diodorus Biculus records three Bacchuses 
— and Nonnus in his Dionysiacs, or mysteries of Dio-7iissi^ 
i,e.^ Jehovah-Nissi, mentions the three Bacchuses. Bacchus^ 
which signifies ^rd-^^/y was successively applied to the three, 
who stood at the head of the dispensations— viz., Adam, 
Noah, and Moses. The remembrance of the first Bacchus 
was celebrated on the sixth day of the mysteries at Eleusis, 
in perfect conformity with the creation of man on the sixth 
day. A passage in Nonnus, who had studied the Mytho- 
logy of Bacchus, will show that the third Bacchus was Moses. 
* And the goddess delivered the child to the priestess of 
Eleusis. The nymphs of Marathon, crowned with ivy, danced 
around the young Bacchus to celebrate his birth ; they shook 
the Attic torch at night. They instituted sacrifices in honour 
of the old, and of the new Bacchus,' — viz., the morning and 
evening sacrifices which had been handed down from Adam 
and J^oah. It must also appear to the reader, that the 
goddess who delivered the child to the priestess, was the 
daughter of Pharaoh, for at that period the sons and daughters 
of kings were priests and priestesses; and that the nymphs 
were the maidens of the daughter of Pharaoh, Exod. ii. 5. 
Thus the Greeks, who originally made up a mythology or 
system of fables, by perverting the rites of Bacchus, or 
Moses, gave this name to various supposed divinities in the 
theogony of Greece, to find the origin of theogonies of other 
nations, and established this heathen worship at one place, 
Eleusis, after the manner of the Hebrews at Shiloh."=^ 

Chap. xix. 1 to 13, in fact, is a repetition, with slight 
variation, of the legislation as to cities of refuge in Num- 
bers XXXV. 11, &c. ; but, says Cahen, while there is here an 
order for three cities of refuge, and a provision for adding 
three qthers, if the Lord shall enlarge thy coast, in Numbers, 
which passes for a book written prior to Deuteronomy, sis 



* Bellamy, p. 494. 



ITS AUTHENTICITY AND CH EDIBILITY. 



413 



cities are mentioned without any such conditional clause, 
which has made- some commentators think, and not without 
reason, that the command in Numbers is later than the one 
here given, and that the compilers have by error inserted one 
before the other.''* 

Chap. XX. 10 to 18. — When thou comest nigh unto a 
city to fight against it, then proclaim peace unto it. And it 
shall be, if it make thee answer of peace, and open unto thee> 
then it shall be, that all the people that is found therein shall 
be tributaries unto thee, and they shall serve thee. And if 
it will make no peace with thee, but will make war against 
thee, then thou shalt besiege it ; and when the Lord thy 
God hath delivered it into thine hands, thou shalt smite 
every male thereof with the edge of the sword ; but the 
women, and the little ones, and the cattle, and all that is in 
the city, even all the spoil thereof, shalt thou take unto thy- 
self : and thou shalt eat the spoil of thine enemies, v^hich the 
Lord thy God hath given thee. Thus shalt thou do unto all 
the cities which are very far off from thee, which are not of 
the cities of these nations. But of the cities of these people 
which the Lord thy God doth give thee for an inheritance, 
thou shalt save alive nothing that breatheth. But thou shalt 
utterly destroy them ; namely, the Hittites, and the Amorites^ 
the Canaanites, and the Perizzites, the HiviteSj and the 
Jebusites, as the Lord thy God hath commanded thee : that 
they teach you not to do after all their abominations, which 
they have done unto their gods ; so should ye sin against the 
Lord your God." 

This is most certainly a noteworthy specimen of a revela-' 
tion from God. The city approached must have been one 
against which the Jews made voluntary war; a city out of 
the land of Canaan, The Jews are to offer it peace, and if 
the city accept the peace, the people are to be slaves, for the 
word at the end of verse 11 is *f llll^f OBeDTJK, and is the 
same servitude as that of the bought bondsman. If the city 
prefers its freedom, then there is to be no mercy :*Hhou 
shalt smite every male thereof with the edge of the sword.'* 
These comparatively merciful commands were in relation to 



* Deuteronome, p. 84. 

t ^Ge " Bibk : What it is," Exodus^ p. 250. 



414 



J)EUTEBOIirOMT S 



the inhabitants of the cities afar off, for the six peoples, 
mentioned in verse 17, there was not to be even the faintest 
glimpse of mercy. Bellamy regards verse 16 as inhuman 
and contradictory to other texts. He says " It is said 
* every one shall be put to death for his own sin.' But 
infants and sucklings could not offend, therefore these words 
cannot be applied to the merciless precept of saving alive 
nothing that breatheth." Bishop Colenso says: ^*It is well 
that we are no longer obliged to believe that the above 
frightful command emanated from the mouth of the most 
Holy and Blessed One. This does not apply to the cities of 
Canaan only. But any city which the Israelites might decide 
for any cause ' to fight against ' if it did not surrender on 
the very first summons, ^make an answer of peace,' and open 
to the foe, on the condition of becoming tributaries and 
servants, was, according to this injunction, to be besieged and 
captured, and to this end the express aid of the Almighty is 
promised, and then all the males, except young children, are 
to be put ruthlessly to death.** 

Verse 19.— For the tree of the field is man's life.*' The 
Douay translates these words ^* For it is a tree and not a 
man.'* The marginal note to our authorised version makes 
the text say that the tree is to be employed in the siege ; 
the text itself saying that the tree is not to be cut down to 
be employed in the siege. Bellamy says that there are three 
errors in the common version of this verse, and translates 
the words " the tree of the field is for man." Cahen gives 
the same translation, but says the passage is difficult to 
translate. 

Chap. xxi. 10 to 14. — " When thou goest forth to war 
against thine enemies, and the Lord thy God hath delivered 
them into thine hands, and thou hast taken them captive, 
and seest among the captives a beautiful woman, and hast 
a desire unto her, that thou wouldest have her to thy wife ; 
then thou shalt bring her home to thine house ; and she 
shall shave her head, and pare her nails : and she shall put 
the raiment of her captivity from off her, and shall remain 
in thine house, and bewail her father and her mother a full 
month ; and after that thou shalt go in unto her, and be her 



* Page 498. 



ITS ATITHENTICITT ACT CREDIBILITY. 415 



husband, and she shall be thy wife. And it shall be, if thou 
have no delight in her, then thou shalt let her go whither 
she will, but thou shalt not sell her at all for money, thou 
ehalt not make merchandise of her, because thou hast 
humbled her." 

In verse 14, instead of " then thou shalt let her go whither 
she will," theTargum of Onkelos reads, **then thou mayest 
send her away by herself." It is not quite clear to what 
captives this applied, for in verse 16 of the previous chapter 
total extermination was decreed against the Canaanites ; 
« thou shalt save alive nothing that breatheth." Supposing 
it to apply to the tributaries of c. xx. 11, or the women 
of verse 13, then it amounts to the provision that if a Jewish 
soldier saw a beautiful woman amongst the captives, he could 
take her home, use her as a wife until he grew weary of his 
prize, and then he might desert her. He was only prohibited 
from selling her, but there is nothing in the text to prohibit 
him from turning her out penniless and destitute. The 
text does not imply that he ought to provide the ruined 
woman the means of existence. Clearly the writer of the 
Targum of Onkelos assumed the right of the sated captor to 
get rid of the burden of the woman of whom he had become 
tired. Colenso adds, Here also we have the manners and 
customs of the writer's age exhibited.*' " The Persian Cyrus, 
or the Eoman Scipio, though heathens, taught by their lives 
a higher morality than this, which, besides the inhumanity 
involved in it, practically sanctions concubinage and poly- 
gam.y." Bellamy, who puts the blame on bad translation, 
admits that, according to the authorised version, the text 
involves a total departure from the principles of justice 
and of humanity," and that by it a man was authorised to 
take a woman, and after having made her his wife, he was at 
liberty to send this helpless stranger from his house, with- 
out making any provision for her future support." 

Verse 15. — " If a man have two wives." Cahen says this 
is the only place [in the law] where polygamy is treated of. 
The Patriarchs had concubines but only one legitimate wife." 

Nor can the verse be taken as limiting polygamy to two 
wives." (See Genesis, iv. 19, as to the two wives of Lamech^ 
and xxix. 23 and 30, as to Jacob.) Later we find polygamy 
commonly practised amongst the Hebrews. 



DSTITE30TOMY : 



Verses 18 to 21.—^* This law/' says Home, has been 
stigmatised as being both inhuman and brutal.'^ Horne first 
defends the law, and then says, We do not read in the 
whole Jewish history of this law having been camed into 
execution/'* Cahen observes^ *^ Jarhi said that they killed 
the son to prevent the continuance of his bad conduct, but 
this is not very likely ; nations do not kill a man for that 
which he will do later,'' EosenmuUer admits the harsh 
character of the law, but pleads for it as necessary amongst 
the people and in the climate where it was given. 

Chap, xxiii. 1. — He that is wounded in the stones, or 
hath his privy member cut off, shall not enter into the con- 
gregation of the Lord." Cahen translates this, " Qu'un 
homme mutile ayant les testicles ecras^s ou coupes ne vienne 
pas dans I'assemblee de rEternel/* and says, **c*est une 
espece de castration encore en usage dans i'Orient, et qui 
consist a amoUir aux enfans tres jeunes les testicules dans 
Feau chaude et a les comprimer ensuite/' The Vulgate, 
which is followed by the Douay, writes it *^ eunuchus attritia 
testiculus." Matthew xix. 12, seems to shadow out a dif- 
ferent doctrine. According to Demetrius,t Bishop of Alex- 
andria, if the Pentateuch remained in force in the third 
century, the famous Origen would have been excluded from 
heaven in consequence of a too literal observance of the 
text in Matthew. 

" The exclusion/^J says Colenso, " of a bastard to the tenth 
generation from the privileges of the sanctuary, while the 
father, the guilty cause of his child's illegitimate birth, was 
not excluded, seems, to our modern sense of right and equity, 
most unjust." It is also directly opposed to the spirit of 
chap. xxiv. 16, and Ezekel xviii. 20. 

Dr« Inman says,§ " The opening of this particular chapter 
of Deuteronomy, is one which is very disgusting to the 
thoughtful mind. It thrusts upon us the belief that the 
Almighty thought more of the representative triad, the em- 
blem under which He was worshipped on earth, than He did 
of the feelings of the heart. To our ideas, it is repugnant 



* Home's Introducbion, &c., vol. i. p. 569. 

t See Mosheinij 3rd cent, part 2, chap. 3, sec. 14. 

I Part 3, p. 531. § A^ncient Paifchs, vol. 2, p. 245. 



ITS AUTHEKTICITY AND CEEDIBILITT. 



417 



that one, who from the greed of parents, or from the misfor- 
tunes of war and slavery, has become an eunuch, should by 
that very fact be deprived of all spiritual comfort. The 
notion is itself contradicted by other portions of the Bible, 
and we shall not greatly err if we attribute the law thus 
enunciated to human, rather than to divine, agency. We 
are fortified in the view thus taken by the consideration of 
the second and third verses, wherein it is enacted, that a 
Mamzer, an Ammonite, and a Moabite, shall be excluded 
for ten whole generations from the congregation of the Lord. 
Modern Christians believe that the Almighty rejoices to 
receive into His fold all or any who were outside ; not so, 
however, the Jews. They had been told so constantly by 
their teachers that they were a chosen people, specially be- 
loved of God, as to believe thoroughly that they stood in the 
position of His earthly spouse. They were, therefore, as 
jealous of admitting any one into their number, as a wife 
would be if she saw another woman trying to steal her 
husband's love. We shall see still farther reason to believe 
in the human origin of the law, when we have ascertained 
the real signification of Mamzer. In our Bible, the word is 
translated * a bastard,' but this, as Spencer very justly re- 
marks,* is evidently incorrect ; for bastards, such as were 
Pharez, the son of Judah by Tamar, Jephthah, the son of a 
strange woman, and Amasa, the son of a strange father 
(2 Sam. xvii. 25), who seems not to have been married to 
Abigail, were not excluded from the congregation. Still 
farther, we are distinctly told that there was a portion of the 
Mosaic law which prevented children from sufi'ering from the 
sins of the fathers, and to exclude nine generacions from 
participation in religious worship, because a p-irent had been 
adulterous, was contrary to the spirit of the Jewish institu* 
tions. To obviate the difficulties involved by the ordinary 
interpretation. Spencer inquires closely into the real signi- 
fications of the word, and concludes that it really signifies * a 
stranger,' ' a gentile/ ' an alien,' or ' a foreigner.' With this 
meaning, every difficulty vanishes. We see, as it were, the 
ancient Jews reproduced in the modern Arabic Mahometans, 
whoconsider their temples defiled if entered by a Christian." 



* *'De Legibu3 Hebraftorum," pn. 105, tt seo. 



418 



DEUTEEONOMT : 



Verses 4 and 5. — There is a direct contradiction between 
these verses and chap. ii. 29, where, as Cahen points out, the 
Moabites are said to have provided food and water for the 
Jews; nor is it anywhere pretended that the Ammonites had 
anything to do with hiring Balaam. David was within the 
ten generations from Ruth the Moabitess, and to avoid this 
difficulty, the Jewish writers have pretended that the text 
does not include Ammonite or Moabite women.* 

Verses 12 to 14. — Colenso points outf that these verses 
are evidently unhistoric, as it would have been impossible for 
the aged and infirm, sick persons, and young children to have 
complied, and he draws special attention to the extraordinary 
wording of verse 14. What we cannot understand is, how 
the Bishop of Natal could afterwards write that in the 
Book of Deuteronomy itself," read in a proper spirit, we 
shall find the living bread which our souls may feed on — we 
Bhall find in it the word of God/'J 

Verses 17 and 18, — On these verses see Colenso, part 3, 
p. 534. Cahen, Notes Supplementaires Deuteronome, p. 170. 
Dr. Inman's Ancient Faiths, p. 168, vol. 2. Dulaure's 
Difierens Cultes, vol. 2. Voltaire's Defense de Mon Oncle. 
It is noteworthy that the same word tWlp QeDeShf which 
is in other parts of the Bible translated righteousness, is 
here rendered as the equivalent of a most abominable 
offence. 

Chap. xxiv. 1. — Any one reading this verse must be struck 
with the strange facility with which one of God\s chosen 
people might get rid of his wife, if she found no favour in 
his eyes." Cahen says that the Talmudists have much dis- 
cussed what it was intended to mean by some unclean- 
ness." The same word occurs, xxiii. 14. Ouziel translates 
the word " uncleanness," as if it were transgression/' 
The pious Bellamy is so struck with the text that he objects 
to the translation, admitting that as it stands, " we are led 
to suppose that if a man took a woman, and made her his 
wife, it was in his power by pointing out some imperfection 
in her, to divorce her and turn her out of his house." 

Verse 2. — It would appear here as if a divorced woman 
might in any case re-marry, but by Leviticus xxi. 7 the priests 



* Deuteronome, p. 99. i* Part 1, p. 39. t Part 3, p, 629. 



I 



ITS AUTHENTICITY AND CEEDIBILITT. 



419 



are forbidden to marry a divorced woman, who is placed in 
that verse on a level with a woman who is a prostitute. 

Verse 7. — " If a man be found stealing any of his brethren 
of the children of Israel, and make merchandise of him, or 
selleth him ; then that thief shall die ; and thou shalt put 
evil away from among you." This limits the punishment for 
man stealing to the case where the one stolen happens to be 
an Israelite. We have already referred to this in dealing 
with Exodus xxi. 16.* 

Verse 16. — This verse has already been dealt with in 
treating Exodus xx. 5,f to which it is in direct contradiction, 
as it is also to Exodus xvii. 14 and 16, and other texts ; but 
see also Jeremiah xxxi. 30, and Galatians vi. 5 and 7. 

Chap. XXV. 5 to 10. — Colenpo, who declares that a similar 
practice obtains amongst the Zulu?, says : This law that a 
brother must take to wife his dead brother's widow, must in 
all cases, where the surviving brother was already married, 
not only have permitted and encouraged, but even enjoined, 
polygamy under the penalty of a lasting disgrace.''^ In fact, 
according to Cahen§, the practice ceased amongst the Jews 
in the 11th century in consequence of the interdiction pro- 
nounced by Eabbi Guerschone against polygamy. 

Verses 17 to 19. — On this|| see Exodus xvii,, where, how- 
ever, there is nothing recorded inconsistent with fair battle 
on the part of the Amalekites. 

Chap, xxvii., 2 to 8. — And it shall be, on the day when 
ye shall pass over J ordan unto the land which the Lord thy 
God giveth thee, that thou shalt set thee up great stones, and 
plaster them with plaster. And thou shalt write upon them 
all the words of this law, when thou art passed over; that 
thou mayest go in unto the land which the Lord thy God 
giveth thee, a land thatfloweth with milk and honey; as the 
Lord God of thy fathers hath promised thee. Therefore it 
shall be, when ye be gone over Jordan, that ye shall set 
up these stones, which I command you this day, in mount 
Ebal, and thou shalt plaster them with plaster. And there i 
shalt thou build an altar unto the Lord thy God, an altar of ' 

* Bible : What it is,'' Exodus, p. 253. 
t See Book 2, Exodus, p. 221. 

t Part 3, p. 536. § Deuteronome, page 106. 

II Bible : What it is, p. 214 



420 



DEUTERONOMY 2 



stones: thou shalt not lift up any iron tool upon them* 
Thou shalt build the altar of the Lord thy God of whole 
Btones : and thou shalt offer burnt -offeriags thereon unto the 
Lord thy God. And thou shalt offer peace-offerings, and 
Bhalt eat there, and rejoice before the Lord thy G-od. And 
thou shalt write upon the stones all the words of this law 
very plainly." 

Colenso"^ points out that in the Samaritan Pentateuch, 
the above passage is, with trifling variation, also inserted 
after v. 17 of Exodus xx. In v. 4, instead of mount Ebal, 
the Samaritan reads mount Gerizim. 

Upon this point, Kennicott writes as follows. Diss, i. p. 96 : 
*^ It must have appeared strange, surprisingly strange, that 
ifc is not more clearly expressed what this law, thus to be 
engraved, was — that a point of so much importance should 
not have been, somewhere or other, very accurately noted, 
and very particularly circumscribed by Moses, partly for the 
more secure direction of Joshua, and partly to render this 
awful transaction more intelligible through future ages. But 
all this surprise ceases, all this puzzle is unravelled, all this 
uncertainty is at once removed, if we allow the authority of 
the Samaritan Pentateuch, if we will but grant that there 
may have been in the Hebrew text a certain passage, which 
is found in all the copies of the Samaritan text and version, 
and which is also found, exactly as in the Samaritan 
Pentateuch, in that Arabic version of it in the Arabic 
character, which has been before mentioned, and which 
is a very valuable, because a very literal, version. Ac- 
cording to this truly venerable copy of the Book of 
Moses, all is clear. The whole is perfectly regular, and 
in harmonious proportion, several circumstances concur- 
ring to render it highly probable that the Ten Command- 
ments constituted the Law which was to be engraved. And 
as it can scarcely be conceived that such a point could have 
been omitted by Moses, it makes greatly for the honour of 
the Samaritan Pentateuch, to have preserved so considerable 
a passage. Why the ancient Jews should omit this passage 
can be a matter of no doubt at all with those who mark the 
honour it does to mount Gerizim. And, therefore, the same 



* Part 3, p. 540. 



ITS AUTHENTICITY AND CREDIBILITY. 421 



men who corrupted Deut. xxvii. 4, have but acted with 
uniformity, if they have also corrupted E. xx., omitting Geri- 
zira in the latter instance just as honestly as they altered it 
in the former. But that some verses did formerly follow 
after the Tenth Commandment in E. xx. 17, and before 
V. 18, we have not only the authority of the Samaritan 
Pentateuch (which, together with the several foregoing con- 
firmations, may be thought satisfactory) but we have also the 
authority of an ancient Syrian MS., which contains a version 
of the Old Testament, and is catalogued in the Bodleian 
Library, 3,130. Between v. 17 and v. 18, at the very place 
where the passage is now found in the Samaritan Pentateuch, 
in this Syriac MS., though translated from a Hebrew copy, 
there is left, in the middle of the page, a vacant space, just 
equal to five verses expressed in the Samaritan. And no such 
vacant space is left anywhere else through the whole M8., 
excepting a space somewhat larger in Ecclus. xxvii. and one 
somewhat lesser, 2 Mace. viii. The inference from this very 
remarkable circumstance I leave to the learned reader." 

That the Samaritan text should be condemned as cor- 
rupted merely for having more in it than the Hebrew, no 
man ot learning will maintain. Certainly the Jews might 
omit, as easily as the Samaritans might insert. And I pre- 
sume that it has been, and will be hereafter more fully 
proved, that several whole passages, now in the Samaritan, 
but not in the Hebrew Pentateuch, are not interpolations in 
the former, but omissions in the latter." 

Richard Simon.* who fully examines this text, and who 
regards the law here ordered to be written, as consisting of 
the twelve curses set out in the end of the chapter, says, 
" Those amongst the Jews who have preferred the literal 
sense of the Scriptures to the dreams of the Talmud, and 
to the play upon words of the Cabalistic Doctors, agree 
with us that they ought not to apply to the whole of the law 
that which is written in this xxvii. chapter. In efi'ect, can 
any one imagine that Moses ordered the Israelites to en- 
grave all the contents of the Pentateuch upon twelve stones?'' 

The fulfilment of the command is supposed to be narrated 
in Joshua viii. 30 to 35, but it is evident to any careful 



* Hiatoire Critique du Vieux Testament, Liv. i. cap. 6, p. 42« 



422 



DEUTEEONOMT : 



reader, that what Joshua is recorded to have said, was most 
certainly not the writing upon the stones of the whole of the 
Pentateuch, but of some brief laws which are represented as 
being written in the presence of the Israelites, who stood 
while the writing was being: donp, and had the whole read 
over to them when it was finished,* 

So much turns upon the variations between our Bible and 
the Samaritan Pentateuch, that it may not be out of place 
here to say a few words upon the three divisions ot the 
Hebrew race — the Samaritans,t and the Caraites, as distin- 
guished from the Jews ordinarily so-called, all of whom 
profess to trace their descent from Abraham, The Caraites 
may be passed in a few words ; they adhered to the strict 
letter of the text, they accepted all the books of the Bible, 
and in this were opposed to the Samaritans, but they re- 
jected the Talmud, and considered the Jews as heretics for 
their user of the Talmudical writings. 

The Samaritans call themselves DnDIt!? ShTJMEIM 
— viz., guardians or observers of the law. They accept the 
Pentateuch only as inspired, and their ancient version of it 
differs in many important respects from the ordinary Hebrew 
versions. There is a sort of translation of this old Sama- 
ritan Pentateuch in use amongst the Samaritans, this last- 
named version being in a kind of patois compounded of 
Syriac, Hebrew, and Arabic. The letters of the old Sama- 
ritan and modern Hebrew alphabets differ. The Samaritan 
text is considered, by Dr. Wall, as much nearer pure 
Hebrew, and as much more ancient than the ordinary 
Hebrew text. Le Clerc describes the Samaritan as more 
correct than the Hebrew in several places. The Samaritan 
version is regarded by Dr. Wall as less ancient than the 
Septuagint, the Samaritan text as probably of much greater 
antiquity. An essay penned, I presume, by Munk^J states 
the interminable contest between the Eabbis as to the original 
character in which the Decalogue was written, and finishes 
by saying, the complication of the Samaritan writing, and 

* See Dr. Giles's Hebrew Records. 

t But see Home's Introduction, vol. ii. p. 10, p. 327, and 
Nicolas : Etudes sur la Bible, p. 93 ; WaU^s Grounds for Revision 
of Hebrew Text, p. 607. 

X Sur les Samaritains. § 8 Cahen, Deuterouome. 



# 



ITS AUTHENTICITY AND CREDIBILITY. 



423 



the relative simplicity of the Assyrian appears to us an in- 
dication that the first is more ancient than the second, which 
dates probably from the sojourn in Babylon, from whence 
came the names of the angels and of the months." 

Chap, xxvii. 15. — Nicolas observes : It is usual to con- 
found, without the least reason, Polytheism with idolatry. 
There is nevertheless nothing in common between these 
two religious forms. Polytheism, the adoration of many 
gods, might exist without being idolatrous. Although, in 
fact, it has always been found connected with idolatry, and 
idolatry is certainly not inseparable from Polytheism ; it is 
in reality a worship rendered to the symbolic representation 
(eiSwXov, image figure) of one god or of many gods. 
There is monotheistic idolatry as well as Polytheistic idolatry. 
There were a great number of idolaters amongst the Hebrews, 
some may be found to-day amongst the Christians. It is 
no less true that the Hebrews were generally as monotheistic 
as the Christians are now,"* 

Chap.xxvii., 15—26. — Home says,**Of all those tremendous 
imprecations which appear in our common English version, 
there is not one authorised by the original, 't The Douay, 
Bellamy, Cahen, and, to our mind, the context directly con- 
tradict Home's view. 

Verse 21. — Dr. Inman points out that in Exodus xxii. 
19, Leviticus xviii. 23, and xx, 15 and 16, we have three 
distinct repetitions of the law on this point, "a sufficient 
proof of the necessity for making it, inasmuch as no legislator 
denounces a crime which is to him unknown.''^ 

Chap.xxviii. — In reference to this chapter, Dr. Inman com- 
pares the worship of the Jewish Deity with that of Baal 
Berith, " Both through their priests, equally promise sensual 
gratification ; and both through the same medium, would 
doubtless be able to attribute any misfortune which happened 
to a votary, to a breach of covenant, or breaking of the bar- 
gain.*'§ The bargain here being obedience and worship on 
the one side, paid for by special temporal advantages, or 
vice versa. 

Verse 10. — And all people of the earth shall see that 

* Etudes sur la Bible, p. 125. 

t Introduction, vol. i,, page 675. 

X Ancient Faiths, vol. i, p. 568. § Ibid, p. 323. 



DEUTERONOMY : 



thou art called by the name of the Lord ; and they shall hid 
afraid of thee." While we are not quite sure as to the accu- 
racy of the translation, it is really very curious that the word 
Jew is much nearer the sound of lEUE nirf^ in this verse ^' 
translated Lord, than it is to any other Hebrew word from 
which the sound Jew can be supposed to be derived. If the 
Jews had been called Jeue or Jewe, their name would have 
been very much what it is. Bellamy says, " The passage 
does not mean that they should be called by the name of 
the Lord, a thing most preposterously absurd/' and he trans- 
lates it " the name of Jehovah will be declared by thee." 
This is hardly maintainable as fact, even if better as transla- 
tion, for the Jews never did declare the name Jehovah, but 
— regarding it as too awful (or too difficult) to pronounce— 
substituted for it the word Adonai. Instead of "called by 
the name of the Lord," the Douay has "the name of the 
Lord is invocated upon thee." Cahen corroborates this 
translation, despite its unwieldy reading. 

Verse 15. — " To do all." These words are not in the 
Samaritan version. There are several verbal differences be-^ 
tween the Hebrew and Samaritan in this chapter. 

Verse 18. — The curse threatened on the fruit of the 
body " for disobedience by the parent, is worthy notice as 
emanating from the Deity, who was at the same time the 
lawgiver, the Creator of the offender, the compeller of the 
offence, and the creator of the " fruit of the body," in order 
that it might be punished for an offence it had no share in. 

Verse 36. — Cahen thinks that the reference to Gods of 
wood and stone, shows that this portion of the text was 
written at, or after, the Babylonian captivity. 

Verse 49.— "As the eade flieth," in lieu of Hb^l*' IDAE 
from DAE, to fly ; the Samaritan has IKAE from 

EAE, to see. 

Verse 53. — " And thou shalt eat the fruit of thine own 
body, the flesh of thy sons and of thy daughters, which the 
Lord thy God hath given thee/' Bellamy^ says : " This 
is a thing so wicked, . . . that it is surprising how a 
supposition so truly disgusting could ever enter into the 
mind ; " but even this is exceeded in the same chapter. 



* New Translation, p. 514. 



ITS AUTHENTICITY AND CEEDIBILITY. 



425 



Verse 67. — The horrible imagination in this ver^e, though 
slightly modified in our translation, may be seen more clearly 
by reference to the Douay. Our translators somewhat 
cloaked the terrible filthiness of the Hebrew text, which the 
Vulejate renders with disgusting accuracy. 

One writer, with a strong reverence for the character of 
Jesus,* speaks of the curses contained in this chapter as 

forming altogether a curse so dreadfully horrible, so cold- 
bloodedly minute and malignant, that one would think some 
demon must have conceived it, and not a man ; and yet it is 
Moses who promulgates it in the name of God ! " 

This chapter is considered by Colenso to have been written 

by one who had already the ruin of the ten tribes before 
him," and is probably one of the many passages which in- 
duced Jerome writing against Helvidius to say that it was to 
him a matter of indifference whether or not the Pentateuch 
was to be regarded as re-edited by Esdras, or as the author- 
ship of Moses. t 

The learned Jesuit Bonfrerius, dealing with similar phrases, 
said, " I prefer saying that another writer has added some- 
thing to the books of Moses, than to be continually repre- 
senting him as a prophet/' 

Chap. xxix. 4. — Cahen, quoting Grueddes, says that this 
verse cannot be taken literally, as the Israelites had bread 
and wine for their sacrifices. 

Verse 19. — " And it come to pass, when he heareth the 
words of this curse, that he bless himself in his heart, saying, 
I shall have peace, though I walk in the imagination of mine 
heart, to add drunkenness to thirst." The Douay trans- 
lates the last clause, " I shall have peace, and will walk on 
in the naughtiness of my heart, and the drunken may con- 
sume the thirsty." Cahen renders it, There shall be peace 
for me if I walk according to the good pleasure of my heart, 
so that fulness (plenitude) may put an end to thirst," and 
in his note he says that the exact sense of the phrase is even 
yet at the mercy of the conjectures of commentators. 

Verse 23. — Admah and Zeboim, which the Lord over- 
threw in his anger and in his wrath." In Genesis xix. 24, 



* Three lectures Ky E. N. D<^ni]y^, p. 7. 

t Simon: Hi^tpire'^Critiqae du V. T., book 1, caps, iv.and v. 



426 



DEUTERONOMY : 



there is no mention of the de8truetion of any cities, save 
those of Sodom and Gomorrah. 

Verse 29. — Cahen says that this verse is neither connected 
with those which precede it, nor with those which follow, 
and appears to have been inserted to give hope to the exiles. 
The manner of the verse is suddenly changed from the third 
person to the first. 

Chap. XXX. 4. — ^* Unto the outmost parts of heaven." 
Cahen, in his note, says, Memo disperses aux extremites 
de la terre. Ben Ouziel paraphrase sur Elie et le Messie." 
Dr. Henry More* says that ^' D^'D'^Tl TDip or axpov ov 
ovpavov implies that the earth is bounded at certain places, 
as if there were truly a Hercules Pillar or non plus ultra. 
As it is manifest to them that understand the natural sig- 
nification of n^Jp and axpov — for these words plainly im- 
port the earth bounded by the blue heavens, and heavens 
bounded by the horizon of the earth, they touching one 
another mutually, which is true only in appearance, as any 
man that is not a mere idiot will admit." 

Chap. xxxi. 15. — " The tabernacle." Dr. Inman argues f 
at great length against the possibility of the existence of the 
tabernacle in the wilderness, on the ground that if the other 
statements in the Pentateuch be true, the Jews could neither 
have had the raw material nor the tools to make such a 
tabernacle as is represented to have existed. 

Dr. Inman asks, "Can anyone read the thirty»second 
chapter of Deuteronomy without feeling that it has been 
written towards the close of the J ewish monarchy ? And 
with that thought, will he not associate the language of the 
Pentateuch >;^ith that so constantly used by Jeremiah ?"J 

De Wette thinks that the contents of this chapter are 
enough to cause it to be taken as the production of an age 
when the nation were already dispersed, and the ten tribes 
found themselves in exile. § 

Verses 4, 15, 18, 30, and 31.— Por the word rock " in 
these verses, the Septuagint, the Vulgate, Douay, and 
Breeches Bible each have the word God." The Hebrew 



* On the Cabbala, p. 57. 

t Ancient Faiths, vol. ii., p. 794. % Ibid, p. 115. 

§ Israelite History, part i,, p. 393, and latroduction to Old 
Testament. voL ii., sec. 160 



ITS AUTHENTICITY AJTD CUEBIBILITY. 427 



word is TsUR, or 0^1!^ TsTJE^M, which latter Park- 
hurst puts as a plural noun, and **a name of certain idols, 
representative of the heavens, under the attributes of com- 
pressors, givers of strength or firmness," conveying an im- 
pression that the J ewish religion was strongly permeated 
with Tsabaism. Dr. Inman identifies Tsur, the Eock, with 
« Phallus," and in verse 18 Cahen translates the Hebrew, 
Ton roc g6nerateur." 

Chap, xxxii. 8.—'^ When the Most High divided to the 
nations their inheritance, when he separated the sons of 
Adam, he set the bounds of the people according to the 
number of the children of Israel." This verse is not very 
explicit ; but if it means that God had apportioned the pro- 
mised land to the Israelites, it then becomes a curious 
question as to how the Canaanites ever became possessed 
thereof. A marginal note to the Breeches Bible says that; 
— When God, by his providence, divided the world, he lent 
for a time that portion to the Canaanites which should after 
be an inheritance for all his people Israel." If this be true, 
then, when God reclaimed his loan, he surpassed Shylock, and 
took a great quantity of blood as interest for his " pound 
of flesh." It does not appear anywhere that the Canaanites 
ever were informed of this strange tenure. Instead of 
holding the land as a loan, they looked upon it as their 
country, but suddenly found, if the Bible be correct, that 
God had sent them a strong delusion, that they might 
believe a lie." ( Vide 2 Thess. ii. 11.) Lord Monboddo,^ 
who appears to have only had the Septuagint version to 
refer to, says, in a very curious argument in favour of the 
existence of genii and demons, that this is one of the 
most blundering translations of the Bible and he makes 
the last clause of the verse read : " He set bounds to the 
nations according to the number of the angels of God." The 
Septuagint has ^'ayytxm ©eoy," but the Hebrew agrees with 
our version. 

Verse 12. — There was no strange god with him." Bel- 
lamy translates this : A strange God was with him," but 
this translation seems strained against the text. It is a 
consolation for persons ignorant of Hebrew when great 
scholars can give two precisely opposite versions. 

^ Ancient Metaphysics, vol. iv, book 2, chap. 7. 



4^8 



BEUTEBONOMY : 



Verses 16 and 17. — These verses are remarkable as con- 

tnining the singular of tbe plural word ff^nSt^ ALEIM, 
and have given rise to much controversy amongst the learned 
divines, because it is apparent to even tbe most prejudiced, 
that if the singular word pf)'^^ or nSs^ (ALUE or ALE) 
(signifies " God," the plural must mean more Gods than one. 
In verse 17 you have both the singular, ALE, translated 

God/' and the plural, ALEIM, translated Gods." 
Call en translates, a des demons, a des non dieux, a 
des dieux qu'ils ne connaissent point." *'TJnto deviln, 
not to God ; to gods whom they knew not, to new 
gods that came newly up, whom your lathers feared not.*' 
The word translated devils," or demons," is D'^Tiy 
Sh<?DIM, which also occurs in Psalm cvi. 37. Bellamy, who 
3u Lhis follows Parkhurst,* says of Shedim : " As a noun 
masculine plural, it was the name given by the Hebrews to 
the idols worshipped by the inhabitants of Canaan, . . , 
The idol was the ancient multimamia, or many-breasted idol 
(as Tsis), worshipped ... by the heathens." This is 
deriving the word from ^t!) Sh^D, the breast or teat ; but 
Dr. Inman, who examines this view at considerable length,f 
does not think it tenable. Instead of *Ho gods that came 
newly up,'* Bellamy reads, " at the approach of the new 
moons they came." 

Verses 20 to 43. — It is useless to comment at length on 
the language attributed in these verses to the " infinite, 
immutable, and merciful Father of us all;" it is quite suffi- 
cient to repeat the terrible threat from a God ot love, **to 
devour flesh with his sword, and to make his arrows drunk 
with blood and that the sword without and the terror 
within shall destroy the young man, and the virgin, the 
Buckling, and the old man with grey hairs." 

Ver»e 22. — Eor a tire is kindled in my anger." Cahen 
renders this, Car la colere s'est enflamm6e dans mes 
narines." (For the rage burns in my nostrils.) 

Verse 27, — Were it not that I feared the wrath of the 
enemy," is strange language to be used by an omnipotent 
Duity. 



* Lexicon, p. 721. 

t Aucient J^aiths, voL ii. pp. 716 -19. 



ITS AUTHENTICTTT A^TD CREDIBILITY. 429 



Verses 48 to 52. — It is impoRsible to ascertain what offence 
was committed by Moses. In Numbers xx., we find that 
the Lord threatened to punish Moses and Aaron on account 
of their unbelief; but it is evident some portion ot the Book 
must be lost, as the particular instance of unbelief is not 
mentioned. 

Chap, xxxiv. 1 . — Unto Dan.'* This is one of the many 
passages showing compilation after Moses fsee Joshua xix. 47, 
and Judges xviii.), and that Dan was so called after the 
destruction of Laish or Leshem.^ As to Deuteronomy/ 
Michel Nicolas says, " there is no doubt that it is posterior 
to the four preceding Books of the Pentateuch. By the 
manner in which the tribe of Levi is honourably distinguished 
from the others (as in Deut. xxxiii. 8 to 11), by the impor- 
tance given to the laws concerning royalty (Deut. xvii. 14 to 
20), the prophets (Deut. xiii. 1 to 5) and the sacerdotal 
classes (Deut. xvii, 8 to 13; xix. 17; xxv. 5 ; xxxi.9); as also 
to everything which is said of the religion of which the unity 
is incontestably established (Deut. xii. 2 to 7 ; xvi. 1 to 7), 
an author may be recognised who lived after the reign of 
Solomon. No date seems to accord better with the compo- 
sition of this book than the period in which the religious 
reform of King Josiah was accomplished.'^t Some passages, 
however, relate to a more recent period (Deut. iv. 27 ; xxviii, 
25, 36, 49, 64 ; xxix. 27 ; xxxii. 5 to 22.) 

Deuteronomy," says Ewald, as translated by Nicolas,J 

is in the Old Testament that which the Gospel of John is 
in the New, In the one book as in the other, the history 
is only the frame in which the teaching is placed; and 
Deuteronomy is a new form, a prophetic renewal of the law, 
as the Gospel of St John is a spiritual view of Christianity. 
The author of the work knew the Books of Genesis, Exodus, 
Leviticus, Numbers, and Joshua. This is proved by the 
parts he has borrowed from them. None can doubt that 
he had also before him documents, either historic or legis- 
lative, of which preceding writers had not made use when 
they find him appealing to ancient prescriptions which are 



* See on this, Genesis book i,, p. 91 ; Giles'^ Hebrew Recofdp, 
p. 131 ; and Colenso, part i., p. 201. 

t Niculas : Etudes sur la Bible, p. 2{), X Etudes, p. 41. 



430 



BEUTEEONOMT : 



not found in the other books of the Pentateuch." Ewald 
thinks the book of Deuteronomy to have been written by a 
Jewish refugee in Egypt during the latter part of the reign 
of Manasseh, and to have excited the religious reform of 
the time of Joshua. Nicolas, while not regarding the ques- 
tion as settled, inclines to the view maintained by Ewald. 

One other fact,'"** remarks Nicolas, still induces us to 
place the formation of the actual Pentateuch alter the return 
from the Babylonish captivity. It is that Deuteronomy, 
the composition of which cannot go beyond the reign of 
Josiah, or at most belongs to the reign of Hezekiah, would 
not, in the later times of the monarchy, have been associated 
without difficulty to Books comparatively much more ancient, 
and then universally accepted as a sacred Mosaic document. 
It required, so to say, that time should give its sanction to 
this book before it could be judged worthy to take its place 
with the writings of Moses and the prophets. But after 
the return from the Babylonish captivity, everything which 
belonged to the period anterior to this national misfortune 
became uniformly tinged with antiquity and sanctity. It 
is not necessary to endeavour to prove this, it is in the 
nature of things. It was then, but only then, that Deute- 
ronomy could form the fifth Book of the Mosaic code. In 
fact, the hypothesis which I propose upon the date of the 
actual formation of the Pentateuch is confirmed by Jewish 
tradition. There was during these ages a general opinion 
amongst the descendants of Jacob that Esdras had been the 
restorer of the Pentateuch (Instaurator Pentateuchi, accord- 
ing to Jerome, who represents the general sentiment of 
the Eabbis.) This tradition certainly had more in view than 
the mere restoration of Mosaism by the celebrated Doctor 
of the Law. It related clearly to the books of Moses. This 
cannot be doubted when one considers the clearly marked 
form which the tradition takes in 4 Esdras xiv. 41 to 48, and 
which it had still kept up to the period of the Hegira amongst 
the Jews of Medina. If it reposed on any historic basis, and 
this it is difficult to doubt, it ought to show, not as is some- 
times maintained, that Esdras himself composed the Penta- 
teuch, but only that he put it in order, or, in other words, 



* Etudes, p. 87. 



.1 



ITS AUTHEI^TICITY AKD CBEDIBILITT. 431 



that he gave to the anterior writings which were, or which 
passed for, the works of Moses, the form in which they have 
come down to us." Father Simon in Histoire Critique du 
Vieux Testament," goes a little farther than Nicolas, and 
would attribute to Esdras the entire composition of the 
Pentateuch. Dr. Kalish^ regards the book of Deuteronomy 
as penned about B.C. 620 : parts of Leviticus and Numbers 
he considers as clearly written after the Babylonian captivity. 

Professor Wheatstonef says: *^ Similar are the words of 
Leontius (de Sectis. Act. 2) : ^ Ezra, coming to Jerusalem, 
and finding that all the books had been burnt when the 
people were taken captive, is said to have written down from 
memory those two-and -twenty books of which we have given 
a list in the foregoing place.' Isidorus (de officiis) and 
Eabanus Maurus (de Inst. Cleric, c. 54) write to the same 
efiect. They affirm, therefore, two things : one, that the 
whole sacred and canonical Scripture perished in the Baby- 
lonian captivity; the other, that it was restored to its 
integrity by Ezra, instructed and inspired in a wonderful 
manner by the direct agency of God. It is very possible 
that the books, which may have been previously in some 
disorder, were corrected by Ezra, restored to their proper 
places, and disposed according to some fixed plan, as Hilary 
in his prologue affirms particularly of the Psaims. Perhaps, 
too, Ezra either changed or reformed the shapes and figures 
of the letters. Jerome, indeed, in his epistle to Paulinus, 
maintains that ^ Ezra invented new forms for the letters after 
the return from the captivity ; for that previously the Jews 
had used the same characters as the Samaritans.' Hence, if 
we credit Jerome, Ezra introduced new forms of the letters, 
more elegant and easy than those which were before in use, 
copied out the law in these new characters, and left the old 
ones to the Samaritans. In conformity with this statement, 
Jerome further tells us, upon Ezekiel ix., that the last letter 
of the alphabet was formerly similar to the Greek Tau, and 
that it still, in his time, retained that figure in the Samaritan 
character ; while the last letter of the Hebrew alphabet has 
now quite another and different shape." 

* Leviticus, pp. 645 and 649. 

t Disputation on Scripture," p. 115. See " Bible : what it 
is," Genesis, p. 56. 



482 



DEXTTEROjS OMY I 



The examination as to the alleged Elohistic and Jehovistio 
documents is more readably complete for an English reader 
in Part iii. of Bishop Colenso, than in any other work or 
which we are aware. The student who has greater time may 
turn to Nicolas's comments on Vainhinger, Bleek, Knobel, 
Ewald, Astruc, Eichorn, and Vater, on the document theory. 
De Wette, commenting on Deuteronomy,* says, Moses 
cannot have been the author ot chapters xxxi. to xxxiv., 
as it appears in special from xxxi., 24 — 26, xxxiii. 1, and 
xxxiv. The anachronisms in ii. 12, iii. 14, xix. 14, and xxxiv, 
1, and the general manner in which the Mosaic history is 
treated, as in chapters i. to iii., carry us to a period after 
Moses. The references to J erusalem and its temple, trans- 
fer us to the time when the Jehovistic documents of the 
other books were written. The references to the earlier 
books bring us to a time considerably later than that in 
which those books originated. The laws respecting the 
Kings, Prophets, and Levites, and that respecting the unity 
of worship, bring us to the period after Solomon, and to the 
times of Josiah, when the unity of worship was first carried 
out. In chapter xxxi. 26, is a command to place the law 
books in the ark ; but as it was not there when the temple 
was consecrated (1 Kings, viii. 9), this must have been 
written long after that event." 

It is impossible to conclude this Commentary on the 
Pentateuch without a parting word to the reader as to the 
English, Latin, Greek, and Hebrew versions of the Old 
Testament. To-day it is practically admitted by Convocation 
that the authorised English Protestant version, so long 
accepted as God's message to the world, is unreliable. It is 
hardly worth staying to consider the good done by the 
British and Foreign Bible Society, in widely circulating 
translations of this admittedly inaccurate version. TheKev. 
Dr. Whittaker, an erudite Church of England divine, in his 
arguments against the Papists, makes it doubtful how far 
the errors of the authorised English text are susceptible of 
correction. He says :t Unless the Hebrew and Gretik 
originals be most foully corrupt, it follows that the Latin 



* Introduction to Canonical Scriptures," vol. ii., sec. 160. 
t Whittaker Against Bellarmine and Others, p. 163. 



ITS AUTHENTICITY AND OKEDIBILITr, 433 

edition is most foully corrupt, inasmuch as it differs widely 
in all the books from those originals. Who does not see 
from this that either the originals are corrupted, or the 
Latin Vulgate edition is full of innumerable errors ? For 
where the difference and opposition of the readings is so 
great as is actually found between the originals and the 
Latin edition, it cannot be said, or conceived, that everything 
is sound and uncorrupted. For, whoever will compare the 
Latin with the originals, shall find almost everywhere a 
remarkable discordance." If the Latin Vulgate be rejected, 
then naturally the English Douay version, translated from 
it, must fall with it. That is, both the Catholic and Pro- 
testant versions stand condemned. Where thea shall our 
reader turn? If he goes to the Septuagint, which St. 
Augustin says was done by seventy-two translators in separate 
ceils, whose translation was found to agree in every letter; sup- 
posing even he escapes the shock of hearing that this doth 
St. Jerome utterly deny " and derideth as a fable and a 
lie yet again on the authority of the Master of St. Jonh's, 
Cambridge, he may be told that " The sounder opinion 
seems to be that of those v/ho determine that the true 
Septuagint is wholly lost, and that the Greek text, as we 
have it, is a mixed and miserably corrupted document.^t 
Nay, the faults of the Greek translation are so manifest 
that it is impossible to find any way of excusing them." 
Josephus distinctly says, if his evidence may be taken as of 
any value, that the version made for the second Ptolemy 
was not a complete translation of the whole of the Hebrew 
writings, but only the books of the !aw,"J whatever this 
may mean; while the Septuagint as we have it goes from 
Genesis to Malachi, If we feel disposed to reject the 
Septuagint, we are placed in the dilemma raised by the Eev. 
Dr. Irons, that Jesus used§ the Septuagint very frequently, 
and at times employed a version differing both from the 
Hebrew and the Septuagint. Are we to suppose that Jesus 
did not know Hebrew, or that he knew the Greek version 
to be the most reliable ? Dr. Irons says further, that we are 

* Dr. Fulke's Defence of the English Scriptures, p. 53. 

t Whittaker's Disputation, p, 121. 

X Antiquities, preface, sec. 3. 

§ The Bible and its Interpreters, p. 20. 



434 



DEUTEROTOMY, 



confronted by the striking fact that the Septuagint, or some 
Greek version, was more in use amongst the Jews 1800 years 
ago than the Hebrew, and that not only had this possibly 
been the case for some generations, but that it was thought 
by many that this Greek version fixed the meaning of soma 
parts of the Hebrew text. And he asks, What is this 
Greek version or Septuagint, as it is called ? Who made it ; 
from what originals was it made ? And when ? And why ? 
And what is its present state And this dignitary of the 
Church of England answers so potently that we repeat his 
own words : " Strictly speaking, no one knows who made the 
Septuagint. No one knows from what copy of the originals 
any parts of that version were made. It appears to be a 
growth of at least two generations: and as it might be 
expected, the style is not the same throughout." But if 
on the authority of Church of England teachers we reject 
alike the King James version and the Douay, the Vulgate 
and the Septuagint, what remains ? Will the orthodox refer 
our reader to the Hebrew ? Then indeed confusion becomes 
worse confounded. There are but few scholars capable of 
testing Biblical Hebrew by their criticism. The Hebrew of 
the Bible is not now, nor has it been for centuries, a spoken 
language. It has literally no classic literature to guide us 
to its meanings in cases of doubt ; and if we may put any 
faith in the Eev. Dr. Wall, another clergyman of the Estab- 
lished Church, the Hebrew text itself is corrupt throughout. 
Dr. Irons, admitting that the Masoretic points at present 
found in nearly all Hebrew B bias cannot be traced back 
" to a higher antiquity than the seventh century of our era,'* 
affirms that previous to the sixth century then the Hebrew 
Bible (we must face the fact) was read traditionally. The 
Jews believed that, together with the written word divinely 
imparted to Moses, there were unwritten instructions, 
directing both the continuance and the interpretation of the 
sacred writings." Where shall the reader turn with the 
most important versions of " God's message to man" thus in 
turn condemned as untrustworthy ? 



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graph of Iconoclast will be given to each purchaser of the Matthias 
Debate. 

Debate on the Existence of Deity with Thomas Cooper, with a Plea j 
for Atheism. Is. | 

God, Man, and the Bible. Three Nights' Discussion with the Eev. j 
Dr. Bayiee, president of St. Aidan's College, Birkenhead. Fourth ! 
edition. The only debate on the Socratic method. Fourth Edi- 
tion. Price 6d. 

Christianity and Secularism Contrasted. Two nights* debate with W. 

M. Hutchings, Esq., at Wigan. Price Is. 
New Testament Christianity. Three nights* debate with the Eev. J, 

H. Eutherford. Price 6d. 
A Plea for Atheism, containing a Eeply to William Gillespie. 



Second Edition. 0 3 

Has Man a Soul ? A lecture. Fourth and revised edition 0 2 

Is there a God ? Eleventh thousand 0 1 

The Atonement. 0 1 

Who was Jesus Christ ? Sixth edition 0 1 

What did Jesus Christ Teach ? Third edition 0 1 

A Few Words about the Devil. Third edition 0 1 

Were Adam and Eve our First Parents ? Third ousand 0 1 

New Life of Abraham 0 1 

New Life of David. Fourth thousand, revised 0 1 

r New Life of Jacob. Fourth thousand, revised 0 1 

New Life of Moses (new edition) 0 1 

\ Photograph and Autograph of Iconoclast 1 0 




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